The Other Side
by ChapterEight
Summary: When Sirius Black ran away from home, it was the result of five years of being pushed and pulled between his Dark family and his Light friends. Contrary to what he told Harry, nothing about choosing sides had been easy. His friends never understood that. He was just an excellent liar, especially about his loyalty to his Dark past and his role as the Dark Lord's most successful spy.
1. Welcome to the Family

Disclaimer: Of course _Harry Potter _was created by J.K. Rowling and is owned by her and various publishers and licensees. I'm just grateful I get to play with the lovely characters and world.

**Author's Note:** Although it's rated M, this story won't have anything too dark or explicit for several chapters, as the characters start out at age eleven. The story will include both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. All of the chapters will be long like this one, so updates won't happen as quickly as if they were shorter, but I have every intention of updating as quickly and regularly as possible. This is definitely not a song fic (at all!) but I found myself getting inspired to write it when I was listening to the band Avenged Sevenfold, and when I was planning each song just kind of naturally described a chapter, so chapter titles will be song titles owned by the band.

**Extended**** Summary:** When Sirius Black ran away from home at sixteen, it was the result of five years of being pushed and pulled between two parts of his life: his Dark family and friends, and his Light friends. Contrary to what he told Harry, nothing about choosing sides had been easy. He had been the apple of his family's eye before being sorted into Gryffindor, and he had never been able to give that up easily, but he had also been unwilling to live as a pariah in his own house at Hogwarts instead of making friends. The truth was that he had never completely denounced his family's Dark views, but he had also come to love his Gryffindor friends and agree with some of their Light views. Prejudices and close-mindedness existed on both sides, and Sirius found himself walking a fine line between them. He was just excellent at lying to both sides, and his biggest lie was about his role as the Dark Lord's most successful spy. The Light side never did understand the depths of his loyalty or that they had been pushing him towards the Dark all along. Follow Sirius through Hogwarts, the First War, Azkaban, and beyond as his conflicting loyalties make and break him, then make him again.

* * *

Walburga Black despised many things. Chief among them, of course, were Muggles, Mudbloods, and blood traitors, but her personality was such that she treated less hated things scarcely any better than she would treat a Mudblood. Her family had long since accepted her ornery nature as a part of life, and her husband and sons usually did their best to abide her many rules. Usually. Her husband she had quite well in hand, but she had found in her nearly twelve years of motherhood that little boys were much harder to control than married men.

Thus, when she heard a horrible racket from somewhere above and thunderous stomping coming down the stairs, she did not mistake it for a sudden infestation of hippogriffs, no matter how much the noise resembled one. She pursed her lips into a thin, displeased line and promised herself that her oldest son wouldn't be allowed to have any of the cherry tart she had ordered for dessert, even though she had ordered it specially for him, because cherry tart was his favorite. Sirius must be the source of the awful noise, of course. Regulus was far too obedient and refined to cause such a commotion.

Sure enough, he burst through the door of the drawing room, sending it crashing into the expensive silk wall covering with a bang. His glossy black hair was in disarray, a pink glow covering his thin cheeks and a grin spread over his whole face. If somewhere in the darkest corner of her mind Walburga quite admired her older son's spirit and secretly thought her youngest too timid, she would never admit it to anyone, least of all to herself.

"MUM!" he burst out as soon as the door opened. She glared.

"SIRIUS ORION BLACK!" she exclaimed at the same moment he cried out, "IT'S HERE!"

"Well, I never…" came from somewhere to her left.

She knew that it was Adolpha Lestrange, as her other visitors were far too used to Sirius's antics to be surprised. It was only sheer willpower and her great desire not to lose face in front of the other woman that allowed Walburga to forcefully calm herself, so her next words came out much calmer than she actually felt.

"You have been told time and time again not to run in the house, Sirius Black! And you know better than to interrupt me when I have guests! You've embarrassed me." She watched in satisfaction as his expression froze. "You have also embarrassed your cousin," she added, tilting her head slightly to indicate Bellatrix, who was glaring at Sirius from her place next to her future mother-in-law. She was Sirius's favorite cousin, and the effect of his actions on her might have a greater impact on the young boy than the effect of his actions on his mother.

Sirius Black had the good sense to look abashed, even though he was so filled with excitement that he couldn't have felt sorry even if he'd tried. He knew from experience that he would get what he wanted much faster if his mother wasn't angry with him. Luckily he was an expert at getting out of trouble. He looked down as he worried his toe into the thick green carpet, the perfect picture of contrition, and let a few seconds pass in heavy silence.

"I'm sorry, Mummy," he said miserably, laying it on as thick as he dared, "Aunty, Belley." He looked at each woman as he spoke, then noticed the stranger next to his cousin. "Er… Madam."

None of them responded, and this time the silence actually felt uncomfortable to Sirius. He looked down again.

"Only I was so excited, and I forgot you had company."

It was Aunt Druella who spoke first. She quite doted on him, as she had only daughters and he was her oldest and handsomest nephew. "What has you so excited, dear?"

His excitement rushed back all at once, along with the color in his cheeks. "My Hogwarts letter came!"

The women reacted immediately, their lingering annoyance disappearing. Sirius had been displaying magic for so long that it had never been in question that he would be accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, but regardless the acceptance letter was still considered one of the most important moments in a young wizard's life.

There were exclamations of delight all around, even from Bellatrix, who had been unreasonably angry just moments before, and Madam Lestrange, who didn't know him at all as they were only briefly introduced amidst the chaos. His mother asked to see the letter, so he took up a position perched on the edge of the settee between her and his aunt. The group chattered happily about Hogwarts letters, recalling when they had received their own and, for Aunt Druella and Madam Lestrange, when their own children had received their invitations to school. Even though the letters were standardized and hadn't changed at all in decades, Sirius's was passed around and perused as if the ladies had never read one before.

Finally, Druella turned to her eldest daughter. "It seems like only last year when you received your Hogwarts letter, Bella," she said, a gentle smile gracing her features, "but here you are two years out of school and ready to be married."

Both Bellatrix and Madam Lestrange looked like they might respond, but Sirius spoke up first. "What's Hogwarts like, Belley?"

His cousin gave him an amused look, her dark, hooded eyes full of laughter under one perfectly raised eyebrow. "Andy, Cissy, and I have each told you a dozen times if we've told you once, as many times as you've asked us in the past few months."

Sirius was less than pleased with her answer. In the first place, he never tired of hearing about the school. More importantly, his mother and aunt and even the new visitor were chuckling as his expense.

At her son's suddenly dark expression, Walburga intervened gracefully. "Now, Bella, I seem to recall how you couldn't find anything you'd rather have talked about when _you_ were eleven."

"I dare say all of us were the same. It is so exciting to finally get a wand and begin learning magic," said Madam Lestrange.

Walburga's agreement of "Quite right, Adolpha" was drowned out by her son's sudden exclamation of "Let's go to Ollivanders today!"

His mother didn't seem to mind the indecorous exclamation this time, and Sirius was too excited to mind when the ladies laughed at him again. However, he quickly deflated at his mother's response.

"Not today, Sirius. I'm quite busy, and your father won't be home until just before dinner."

Sirius would not be put off. "Can't Grandfather take me?"

"There are trials today, Sirius." His grandfather, Arcturus, was a member of the Wizengamot.

"Can you take me, Aunt Druella?" he asked desperately. The wide-eyed, pleading expression on his face was completely genuine.

Walburga would not have allowed anyone other than herself to accompany her first child on such a momentous shopping trip. Fortunately, she was spared having to disappoint him when her sister-in-law had the good sense to answer in the negative. That was quickly followed by Bellatrix laughingly preempting Sirius's next request by saying that she and Adolpha would be leaving soon to have lunch with her fiancé, Rodolphus, and the rest of the Lestrange family. Sirius sulked next to his mother, visibly displeased, and she decided that she had better distract him before he was uncontrollable for the rest of the day. The boy did have a temper quite as bad as his father's. If everyone else would have remarked that Orion Black was actually a relatively calm person and it was _her_ temper that Sirius had inherited, Walburga remained willfully ignorant of it.

"We'll go soon, I promise. For now, why don't you go upstairs and begin sorting through your things?" He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, trying not to show his curiosity at what she meant. Pretending not to notice, she continued, "After all, a wand isn't the only thing you'll need. You'll need warmer clothes for the Scottish winter, and to see what other things you'll need to fill in your wardrobe. You'll also want to decide if you want to take any of your other things with you."

Sirius's cross expression clearly showed what he thought of that chore.

Walburga smoothed his mussed hair. "We'll go on Thursday. If you have it finished by Wednesday, you shall have an owl."

"An owl!" He could no longer sulk at that information.

His mother smiled. "Yes, my darling. You had better get started, though, if you want to finish in two days."

He sprang up from the settee immediately. The older ladies managed to show no more than the slightest smiles at his rushed farewells, all of them more amused than insulted, but Bellatrix laughed outright. Despite the eight-year difference in their ages, they had always been the closest to each other of any of the cousins. They shared passionate thoughts, impatient dispositions, and explosive tempers, and were much better suited to one another than either of them were suited to Andromeda's levelheadedness, Narcissa's complacency, or Regulus's timidity.

"Siri," she caught his attention just as he was rising from kissing her mother on the cheek, "if you send me a letter with your new owl, I'll take you to Diagon Alley sometime before the start of term, since I won't see you again until Christmas. If it's okay with you, Aunt Walburga."

Where Bellatrix had only asked permission as an afterthought, Sirius completely ignored his mother's reaction as he leapt across the room towards his cousin. She had just enough time to throw her arms out to catch him as he crashed into her, both of them laughing as his lips collided with her cheek. He was gone just as quickly as he had come, heading for the door.

As he all but ran back out the way he had come in, Walburga called after him, "We'll have cherry tart to celebrate!"

Conversation resumed as soon as the door closed behind him, much more decorously this time than with his explosive entrance.

"You will have to excuse my son's behavior, Adolpha," Walburga told the other woman out of politeness, though those closest to her would have recognized in the tone of her voice that she didn't really believe that a Black owed any such apology to a Lestrange. Or to anyone else, for that matter.

Madam Lestrange offered a thin smile in return, as there was nothing else she could have done politely except to deny the need for an apology. "Not at all. My boys were just as excited when their Hogwarts letters came. I do sometimes miss my young boys, now that they've grown into young men." Although her boys wouldn't have acted in any such way in front of company, she thought to herself.

"And such fine young men," declared Bellatrix, her perfectly serious tone a striking contrast to her demeanor only moments before. Her mother and aunt exchanged an amused look at Bellatrix's attempts to ingratiate herself with her fiancé's mother.

"I wish I had boys," interjected Druella. "I wouldn't trade my three daughters for the world"—she leaned over and patted Bellatrix's hand—"but I am quite jealous of Walburga and her two sons."

Adolpha seemed content to continue in that vein. "Sirius is such a handsome, lively child." Truthfully she thought uncontrollable would have been a better description than lively. "Is your youngest very much like him?" She hoped not.

As the conversation revolved around their children, Walburga accepted the praise heaped upon her sons by their aunt and cousin, and bragged no little amount herself. Walburga Black detested many things, noise and disruption included, but she loved to flaunt the superiority of her family, her offspring in particular.

* * *

The next two days passed by dreadfully slowly for Sirius. It had only taken him until Tuesday morning to sort through his things. When his mother asked him to make a list of everything he had decided to take so that they could purchase everything else he needed in Diagon Alley, it only took him until Tuesday afternoon to complete that. He might have stretched it out longer had he not conscripted the family's house-elf to help, but he hadn't thought of that until after it was done. He had tried to fill the rest of his time by playing chess and Exploding Snap with his younger brother and by writing letters to every friend he had, but he was easily distracted. Thoughts of his new wand, his new owl, and his new school invaded his mind no matter how much he tried not to think about them. Even his lessons with his grandfather, which he usually enjoyed more than anything, were tedious.

Arcturus observed the transformation with a critical eye as the toad's legs shrunk into its body, which was rapidly molding itself into a square shape. Sirius had already turned his eyes back to the garish gold clock on the shelf behind his grandfather's head.

"Sirius." Arcturus was using his sternest tone, the one that caused nearly everyone to wilt.

Sirius let out a breath that was somewhere between a huff and a sigh. It had only been a few minutes since the last time he'd checked the time.

When he turned his attention back to the man in front of him, Arcturus's expression was implacable. "If you had done any worse, this snuffbox would be hopping away."

Indeed, the back legs had failed to completely disappear, and the small box was balancing precariously on its remaining feet. The shape was still too froggy in nature to be called a square, and although the color and pattern were what he had envisioned, the texture still looked like toad's skin. Sirius couldn't fully repress a grin, although he managed not to laugh.

Arcturus's expression never faltered. "Perhaps if you don't want to pay attention," he said, "then you should remain at home so you can practice, and you can put this shopping trip off to a later date."

"What!" Sirius sat up straighter in alarm. "No, you know I can do it!"

"What have I told you, son?"

Sirius let out another breath. "Power is built through consistency," he repeated the lesson. "But Grandfather, I hardly ever mess it up! I'm just so excited!"

The older man's expression softened just a bit, the skin around his stern mouth relaxing a fraction. It was not enough for most people to notice, but it was obvious to Sirius, who had spent time with his grandfather nearly every day for as long as he could remember, as they lived together in the ancestral Black home.

Pushing his luck, Sirius grumbled, "I'd never mess up if I could use my own wand. Yours doesn't fit me."

Arcturus raised one imperious eyebrow. "Things will be easier with your own wand," he explained, "but that will not replace the importance of concentration."

"Well, we'll never know if Mother doesn't—"

"Sirius Orion Black," Arcturus interrupted, "you know perfectly well that I will not tolerate this whining!" His tone was as cold as ever, but his face had not hardened again.

Sirius schooled his face into as serious a mask as he could manage. They glared at one another over the desk, Arcturus sitting perfectly straight in his chair and Sirius slouched back in his. The older man's icy gray eyes bore into Sirius's matching pair. Though Sirius struggled to maintain his composure, he couldn't. He cracked first, and a chuckle escaped unbidden from his throat. His grandfather did not laugh, but the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. Sirius knew that it was as close to a laugh as he'd get from the Black patriarch, and he laughed freely in return.

"A watched cauldron never boils, Sirius," his grandfather told him once his grandson had calmed down, and Sirius sighed in return. Arcturus gave a long-suffering sigh of his own, but his eyes remained warm with amusement. "Well, go on then."

Sirius refocused on the toad, which Arcturus had untransfigured, and quickly transfigured it back into a snuffbox. This time the legs disappeared and the shape and texture looked like they were supposed to. Sirius had concentrated extra hard and managed to add a few details. It was just some ridges on the surface, but it was more than he had ever accomplished before. He grinned.

This time Arcturus's critical eyes retained their warmth. "That was very well done, Sirius," he praised. "You'll need more practice before you are able to really manage the details you attempted, but you're certainly further along than your father was at your age."

"Really?" Sirius asked.

"Certainly," his grandfather replied. "Orion had barely managed to transfigure a match into a needle before he went to Hogwarts."

Sirius beamed at that knowledge. His grandfather had been tutoring him since he had turned eleven last November, as he had tutored his own son before that and had been tutored by his own father before that. It was technically illegal for Sirius to perform magic outside of Hogwarts, as Arcturus knew full well as a member of the Wizengamot. However, the Trace could only detect the presence of magic and not the specific caster, so there was no way for anyone to know that it was Sirius casting spells instead of one of the adults or a house elf. And Arcturus Black had never followed a rule he didn't have to follow, despite his chosen profession. The lessons were the highlight of Sirius's days, so he was certainly not going to complain, and Orion and Walburga were too delighted with their son's increasing control of his magic to protest, even if they had ever had a mind to protest, which they hadn't. The only person in the house who minded was Regulus, who thought it was unfair that he had to wait until his own eleventh birthday to be allowed to leave his regular tutor behind and start magic lessons himself.

Arcturus, never one to mollycoddle anyone, declared, "Your father was much further along in potions than you are, though. He had more patience."

Sirius scoffed, "Who cares about brewing boring potions, anyway?"

"You had better care, because you know that your parents and I will not accept school marks lower than we know you're capable of receiving," his grandfather told him. He examined his grandson's expression closely. "You're probably correct that your own wand will work much better than mine. I think that mine is too short for you. You require a longer wand, one much more suited to your flourish for the dramatic. Your father and I are much more subdued."

"Does wand length really have anything to do with that?" Sirius asked, not bothering to be insulted at his grandfather's entirely truthful assessment of him.

Arcturus nodded once. "Yes, my boy, quite so. I think it will become clear when you're old enough to join the Dueling Club and you develop a much more dramatic style than either your father or me."

Sirius mulled that over for a few moments, but he was never one to spend time thinking about things far off in the future, so his thoughts quickly turned back to the clock. All the talk of wands had only made Sirius more aware that he would have his own later that very day. If his mother ever decided that her son's trip to Diagon Alley was more important than gossiping with a bunch of silly women, that is, and she ever decided to throw out her visitors and take him shopping.

The rest of his lesson passed by as slowly as ever. Arcturus was so frustrated at Sirius's lack of attention that the two were glaring at each other across the desk, for real by that time, when the family's house-elf popped into the room.

"Mistress has sent Kreacher to summon Master Sirius downstairs," he announced.

Sirius didn't wait for his grandfather to dismiss him, but had leapt from his chair and made it halfway out the door before the man called after him sarcastically, "By all means, take my wand with you!"

Sirius barely took the time to turn back around and all but throw his grandfather's wand back to him before he raced down the corridor towards the landing leading to the ground floor below. He knew that his mother would probably be furious with him for running through the house, but he didn't care. He thundered down stairs, the indignant shouts of all of the Noble and Most Ancient Blacks trailing behind him as he disturbed the portraits, and skidded to a halt in front of his parents. His mother began to reprimand him for his behavior, but Orion took his wife's arm to forestall her.

"Now, dear," he said, his authoritative voice brooking no opposition, "I think we can forgive Sirius for being so excited. It isn't every day a boy gets his wand, now is it?"

Orion Black was a tall man, at least a couple of inches taller than his imposing father, with the characteristic aristocratic Black features. He had high, sharp cheekbones and thin cheeks. His nose was straight and proportionate, set over thin lips and a strong chin. He was dressed in impeccable velvet robes—green, of course—and his neat black hair was perfectly parted. His wife looked resplendent on his arm in robes of silver silk, her jet-black hair pulled up into an elegant, intricate chignon. She was tall for a woman, though nowhere near as tall as her husband, and the top of Sirius's head already almost reached her shoulder. His family saw it as a sure sign that he would be tall like his father and grandfather.

Sirius grinned up at his father, grateful that he had been spared his mother's wrath at least on this occasion, though he knew that he would have to be on good behavior for the rest of the day if he was to have a peaceful shopping trip. And if he wanted to maybe get some treats beyond what was on his school list. He had taken special care in dressing and arranging his hair that morning because he'd had an eye for pleasing his mother and therefore increasing his chances of an ice cream sundae at Fortescue's or maybe a quick stop by Gambol and Japes for some pranking supplies. After all, his father's intervention could only quell his mother's opinions as long as she wasn't particularly annoyed. She had no problem overriding even her husband's most authoritative declarations, as long as they weren't being observed by other members of pure-blood society.

Walburga looked her son over, and Sirius straightened even further than he had been previously, remembering the constant reminders about posture he'd received for as long a he could remember. After a few long moments, Walburga nodded, and Sirius was glad that he had thought far enough ahead to please her with his appearance.

"Yes, Orion, I suppose we can forgive his behavior just this once," she said. Then she turned her sharp black eyes back to her son. "Do you have your school list, Sirius?"

After Sirius had dutifully handed it over, he took his father's other arm opposite his mother and the family Apparated away. Fortunately, the Leaky Cauldron was relatively near to Grimmauld Place, and Sirius only had to take one deep breath and blink the moisture from his eyes to recover. He hated the sensation of Apparition, as he suspected anyone who wasn't completely mad must, even though he was used to traveling Side-Along with his various family members. Flooing was considered by his mother to be much too filthy, and he could remember his Grandmother Irma insisting on many occasions when her many grandchildren had Flooed over (There were too many of them for only one or two adults to Side-Along.) that no amount of cleaning charms could completely get the Floo powder out of one's clothing and carpet.

Orion released his arm and clapped him on the shoulder. "All right, son?"

Sirius was about to answer in the affirmative when his mother broke in. "Of course he's all right!" she said, her tone conveying just how ridiculous she thought her husband must be for asking if their son could handle a bit of Apparition. "Now, we had better hurry if we want to miss the crowds. I don't suppose the common people will be about until the weekend, but all the same we only have a few hours before any of them who want to come today start to show up."

She set off across the pub, dragging her husband along by the arm for a moment until he wisely fell in step with her stride. Sirius fell in beside him, father and son sharing partly amused, partly exasperated looks at Walburga's behavior. Walburga Black, like most other members of her family, had very decided opinions about anyone who held a usual nine-to-five job. Or any low-level Ministry job. Though perhaps her opinions were a bit harsher than most others'. Sirius stamped down the urge to point out that they would have had longer until the end of the workday if she hadn't insisted on spending all morning socializing with her friends. Saying such a thing was not the way to go about getting treats.

Instead he asked, "Mother, may we start at Ollivanders?"

Just as he had specially arranged his appearance and maintained his posture for this outing, he was sure to address his mother more formally outside of the comfort of their home.

Walburga took out her own wand to tap the bricks leading to the alley, as her husband's wand arm was engaged by her. "We'll have to start at Gringotts, Sirius," she replied as the wall began to open, "but yes, it does make sense to walk to the end of the alley first instead of doubling back several times."

Sirius didn't particularly care what was practicable; he just wanted his wand. However, as his mother's opinion coincided with his wishes, he gave her a pleased smile as they stepped into Diagon Alley.

The street wasn't particularly crowded, but Walburga's expression still took on the look of someone who had smelled something unpleasant as witches and wizards brushed close by the family on their way past the shops and vendors. A group of teenagers rushed by them as they were going by Quality Quidditch Supplies, obviously forgetting their manners in their haste to reach the store. Sirius was quite annoyed when one of them knocked into his shoulder, sending him crashing into his father's side, until he heard the group's chatter and ascertained that one of them had been given permission to pick out a broomstick for his birthday. Sirius couldn't begrudge someone's excitement at getting a broom, though he decided that he'd better hold off on mentioning it on this trip, since he wasn't allowed to have one as a first year anyway.

He'd better mention something he wanted that he could actually take with him, he thought, and then next summer he'd ask for a broom.

Finally they reached the tall, white edifice of Gringotts, and the goblins waved them through the bronze outer doors and the inner silver without any fuss. Though he had been to Gringotts loads of times, Sirius couldn't help but eye the goblins curiously as he followed his parents into the long hall and up to the high desk, behind which dozens of the odd creatures were counting coins and examining artifacts in their extremely long fingers. Orion's face had transformed by now so that his haughty expression perfectly matched his wife's, and he stepped up to the first goblin without a care for the wizard who was currently being helped by the creature.

"You'll have to wait your turn like—" the goblin began, then stopped abruptly when his gaze finally landed on Orion. "Ah, Mr. Black, of course!" he said, his tone now much friendlier, though he offered no apology.

The man he had been being waiting on previously protested, "Excuse me!" but Orion ignored him as he said, "I will make a withdrawal from my family vault." Walburga spared the wizard a disgusted glance before muttering something to her husband, of which Sirius only caught the words "filth" and "such gall."

The goblin waved over one of his colleagues. "Bogrod will take you," he told the family before turning to the other goblin. "Vault eight hundred and eighty-eight. You'll need the Clankers."

As the family walked away, Sirius heard the first goblin explaining to the other wizard about how they were "very old customers," which was probably a bit unnecessary given the number of their vault.

The ride down was as twisty and turny as ever, and though Sirius loved every moment of it he could tell that his mother was fighting to maintain her arrogant expression over her slightly green pallor. They passed under a waterfall, which must have been magical as none of them actually got wet from it, and soon enough found themselves at a stop as the goblin handed out odd metal instruments and reminded them how to use them. Sirius only shook his halfheartedly, because he was too fascinated watching the dragon as it cowered against the wall farthest from them. Soon enough he was being ushered into the vault by his father's hand on his shoulder and the great beast was out of sight.

Walburga was already scooping gold into the small purse she kept for that purpose, which had an Undetectable Extension Charm on it so that it could hold much greater quantities of money than seemed possible from looking at it. Orion dug around in his robes for a moment before pulling out a handsome black leather bag Sirius recognized as his father's own moneybag. However, his father offered it to him instead of beginning to fill it with money, and Sirius took it, confused.

"Since you're going off to Hogwarts, it's time you begin to manage your own money," Orion explained. "You grandfather allowed me to have forty Galleons per term when I first started Hogwarts, but as you've excelled so well in your studies this year, I think you may have fifty."

Sirius grinned and, without questioning his father further lest he change his mind, began carefully counting out Galleons from the pile of gold nearest him. Orion pulled a matching bag from the same pocket in his robes and moved further into the vault to gather what he needed.

"If you don't mind some advice, sir," said Bogrod, who was standing near him by the door as his parents examined various items deeper inside the vault, "you would do best to get some Sickles and Knuts as well as Galleons. Not everything you buy will be worth a Galleon, and sometimes it's easier if you have exact change."

Sirius thought that this was very good advice and thanked the goblin before turning back to the pile of gold. He counted out three more Galleons so he had an even thirty, then moved further into the vault to join his father again. As there were seventeen Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it just wasn't practicable to count out twenty Galleons worth of them by hand. Orion helped him by sorting the appropriate amount of money into a separate pile using a charm, and Sirius scooped the pile into his bag.

No sooner had he finished than his mother caught his attention and waved him over to some shelves along the right side of the vault. "I had this made for you, my darling," she said, feeling it appropriate to use a pet name in the privacy of the deepest reaches of Gringotts where surely no one else could hear her.

The shelf was full with gems of various types and sizes, some resting loosely in boxes and some set into jewelry, but Walburga was gesturing towards a handsome silver-colored ring with a large black stone. The stone had the Black coat of arms engraved on its surface, and there were two of the greyhounds carved into the metal on either side in a perfect reproduction of the ones on the crest. Sirius recognized the ring as identical to the ones his father and grandfather wore constantly on their right hands. He had never given a thought to receiving his own, but now that he was faced with it he felt his chest filled to bursting with pride. He reached out decisively to take it, removing the box from the shelf and the ring from the box quickly so he could examine it up close.

"Put it on, dear," his mother urged, clearly pleased with his reaction.

Sirius obliged and felt the ring magically size itself to fit his finger perfectly. It looked regal and, he thought, perfectly in place on his hand.

"I received my ring just before I went to Hogwarts," Orion told him as he looked over his son's shoulder to admire the new ring, "and your grandfather received his then, and my grandfather received his, stretching back for nearly thirty generations beginning with your first namesake."

"I had it commissioned as soon as I found out that I was having a son. I was so proud to know that the Black name would continue," his mother nearly whispered.

Walburga's expression was as soft as Sirius had ever seen it, and she didn't seem able to tear her eyes away from the ring on his hand. He knew that her children's status within the family was almost as important to her as the family's status in the wizarding world in general. The family had branched out in many different directions, but only one branch consisting of the oldest sons of the oldest sons inherited this family vault and the family home at Grimmauld Place. Walburga herself was a Black by birth as well by marriage, as she and her husband shared a great-grandfather, but Orion's grandfather had been the eldest son and Walburga's grandfather the third eldest. Most other branches of the family were well off, but none of them had the resources of Arcturus's branch of the family, and Walburga had undoubtedly grown up in the shadow of the vast wealth of her cousins and was beyond pleased that her son shared it.

If she was also beyond pleased that she—and her husband, of course, though what credit he deserved since he hadn't been the one to suffer through pregnancy and childbirth, she couldn't say—had managed to have sons when her siblings had only girls or no children at all, she certainly never _openly_ gloated about it.

Suddenly his father's much larger hand was beside his, and Sirius couldn't help another grin at the sight of their matching rings.

"And she's been waiting to give it to you ever since," Orion declared. "Don't we look like even more of a matching pair than ever?"

"Don't be absurd," huffed his wife, more in amusement than any real annoyance. "You know very well that he looks much more like Arcturus than like you."

There was nothing else to do in the vault, so the family headed back to the surface, Orion and Walburga's good-natured argument pausing only as long as it took for the cart to reach the surface. It was a longstanding debate that Sirius had heard more times than he could count, so he tuned out his parents' voices as they emerged back into the sunlight and headed towards the end of the alley. He was fairly certain that Orion only insisted that his son favored him because he enjoyed arguing with his wife, anyway.

A few minutes later, Sirius all but burst through the door of Ollivanders in his excitement. Wand boxes were stacked floor to ceiling in neat rows, and he looked around, nearly bouncing with energy. There was only a single spindly chair in the narrow confines of the shop, and Orion helped his wife into it before conjuring another, much sturdier looking chair for himself.

"Ah, Mr. Black," came a voice from his left, and Sirius spun around from where he had been examining wand boxes to find himself nearly nose to nose with a white-haired man with startling blue eyes.

"Er, hello," he managed to say, but Mr. Ollivander was already speaking over him, exclaiming, "I've had a veritable stream of Blacks coming through lately, with all of your cousins!" Sirius wasn't sure if he was meant to respond, but fortunately the man spoke again before he had to think of anything to say. "Orion and Walburga Black! Ten and three-quarter inches, cherry and dragon heartstring for you, Mr. Black. A very tricky wand, takes exceptional self-control to wield. And Mrs. Black, yours is nine and a half inches, cedar with unicorn hair. Particularly good for curses."

Both of his parents opened their mouths to confirm that Ollivander's memory was correct, but the man was already working around Sirius with his tape measure, which was currently measuring the length of his ears. It continued to measure various parts of his body, some of which Sirius couldn't understand as useful to using a wand, as the wandmaker himself bustled back and forth in the rows of neatly stacked boxes.

Soon enough Ollivander had waved away the tape measure and thrust a wand into Sirius's hand. The wand—eleven inches, elm, dragon heartstring—was snatched away almost as soon as he'd gripped it.

This continued for several minutes, with Mr. Ollivander occasionally muttering things such as "Well, definitely not unicorn hair" and "Very tricky indeed" as he pulled box after box from the stacks.

Finally, Sirius ventured to ask, "My grandfather told me that I might get a longer wand because they're better for people with more passion. Is that true?"

"Longer wands are usually best suited for wizards with large personalities, yes." The wandmaker eyed him up and down curiously. "This was your Grandfather Arcturus?"

"Yes, sir," confirmed Sirius.

Mr. Ollivander's misty stare seemed to bore into him. "Well," he finally said, "I suppose he knows you best."

Suddenly Sirius found another wand thrust into his hand, and when he gave it a wave a brilliant light shot from the end without causing any destruction at all. Ollivander took it back again, but this time he commented that they were getting much closer, indeed.

Sirius took the next wand without expecting much to happen, but this time warmth began in his fingers and traveled up his hand into his arm. Already knowing in his gut that this was his wand, he waved it through the air decisively. Silver ribbons of light shot through the air, and Mr. Ollivander exclaimed, "Oh, that's the one!" while his mother said, "That's just what happened when my wand chose me," and his father rushed forward to examine the wand.

It was dark gray with an elaborately carved square handle, which continued straight into a rounded end. It was quite a handsome wand, and the shape was quite unusual to Sirius, who had only ever seen round wands, though he had seen various forms of straight and bent and everything in between.

"Blackthorn with dragon heartstring," said Mr. Ollivander, "and thirteen and a quarter inches, pliable. Mr. Black, your grandfather was quite right about the length. Quite surprising indeed given that most of your family favors neat wands, although your cousin Bellatrix's is twelve and three-quarter inches so maybe it isn't too shocking. It's a powerful wand, indeed, quite suited to powerful feats of magic and well-suited for a warrior. Let me warn you, though, that you might find that it will only perform at its very best after you've been through some trials together."

Sirius was quite pleased with this, though he didn't know what to make of the bit about going through trials.

His father paid nine Galleons and seven Sickles for the wand, which Mr. Ollivander said was made of a particularly rare type of wood and had come from a Norwegian Ridgeback notorious for burning down entire villages, but Sirius was unwilling to have his wand wrapped. Walburga assured Mr. Ollivander, not exactly impolitely, that since Sirius came from a pure-blood family there was little chance of him accidentally revealing his wand to Muggles or accidentally getting into trouble under the watchful eye of his parents and grandfather, and the man desisted trying to re-box it.

The family walked back onto the cobbled street, Sirius with his hand in his pocket since he was unwilling to let go of his new wand just yet. Orion, noticing this, insisted that they should stop at the magical accessory shop before going on to Twilfitt and Tattings to purchase Sirius's robes. They headed a few more doors down from Ollivanders until the alley made a ninety-degree turn into the more upscale section of the wizards' shopping district, then into the accessory shop. There were all kinds of interesting and downright odd items in the store, but Walburga was rushing her husband and son along, so Sirius was only able to look at the selection of dragon hide gloves, which were on his school list, and wand holsters, which his father insisted he should have. He chose an arm holster that fitted snugly between wrist and elbow and which released his wand into his hand with a certain flick of his first and second fingers.

Getting fitted for robes was particularly boring, as Sirius always found shopping for clothes to be, and then Walburga insisted on stopping by the home goods shop. The linens at Hogwarts were simply too rough to fathom, she insisted, and so Sirius found himself bored out of his mind while his mother chose silk bedding with built-in cooling, heating, and cushioning charms.

Then they were heading into the shop that carried rare breeds of owls, and he was nearly as excited as he had been to get his wand. The shop was dark in deference to its inhabitants' nocturnal natures, and big, glowing eyes shone through the darkness. His mother told the shopkeeper that they would need an eagle owl, and Sirius was perfectly happy to browse the rows of cages and perches to find the perfect one. The store was dark enough that browsing required the use of lighting spells, and Sirius and Orion walked along beside each other illuminating the birds one by one since Sirius was not yet allowed to use magic outside of school. Or rather, he wasn't allowed to use magic outside the confines of his own home, as it happened.

The eagle owls were beautiful and imposing creatures, but none of them caught Sirius's eye as he looked at one after another. Then suddenly, as he was admiring another eagle owl, a bird higher up in the darkness caught his eye, and Sirius grabbed his father's wrist and jerked his arm upwards so he could get a better look. The owl was not an eagle owl, though Sirius couldn't have said what kind it was, as he had never seen one before. It had feathers that Sirius could only describe as fluffy, which were brownish-gray with white ones shot through. The face was huge and round, with gray feathers and big, round yellow eyes. It was much more attractive and fearsome-looking than any of the eagle owls, in Sirius's opinion.

"The eagle owls grow the largest by weight of any of the species," the shopkeeper was telling his mother.

"I want this one," Sirius cut into the conversation, pointing at the unusual owl, which was still illuminated by his father's wand.

Walburga stared for a moment, pursing her already thin lips into an even thinner line. "Sirius, dear, an eagle owl is really what's expected of someone with your status."

Sirius didn't care, and he said so. Walburga looked about to argue the point further. The shopkeeper, sensing a sale falling away from her, explained, "She's a spectral owl. They're larger than eagle owls in terms of length, and as you can see, they really have quite a distinctive appearance. You'll certainly be noticed if you choose her."

Sirius smiled at the woman in thanks, and Orion commented that the owl _was_ really quite handsome. Walburga, however, was not convinced. "I would prefer you to get an eagle owl," she told him, her tone brooking no argument.

"Fine then," Sirius said, not particularly minding arguing with his mother, "if you won't buy her for me, I'll just use my own money to get her!"

Orion had to stifle a chuckle, which he dared not let his wife hear. Walburga, for her part, glared hard at her son, though the impact was lessened somewhat by the fact that the shop was too dark for him to properly see her face. Finally, after many long seconds of this stalemate, she reached for the moneybag in her robes.

"No, I said that I would buy your owl as a reward," she said tightly, clearly displeased. "If this is the one you want, then this is the one you shall have…. Are you absolutely certain that there aren't any eagle owls you would prefer?"

But Sirius had stopped listening after hearing that he could have his owl, and had turned and held his arm out to it. It stared at him for a moment, head tilted and disconcerting yellow eyes gazing at him hard, and Sirius thought that it would be very humiliating if the animal rejected him after he had argued so hard to have it. Then it finally gave a little trill and flew down to land on his proffered arm. He spent several minutes getting to know the bird as his parents chose everything he would need, including a cage and owl treats, and completed the transaction. Finally, it was time to leave the shop, and Orion opened the cage to allow the owl to enter, but she stared at him reproachfully and turned on Sirius's arm so that her back was facing his father and the cage.

Sirius let out a bark-like laugh. "Well, you know where Grimmauld Place is, don't you?" he asked the bird, and she hooted softly, nibbling his finger softly for a moment as he tried to pet her.

That decided, the family excited the shop and the owl took flight as Orion shrunk the cage so that it could be carried more easily. They headed back out to the main street in Diagon Alley, as all they had left to visit at this point was Flourish and Blotts, the apothecary, and the cauldron shop. As they passed Gringotts on their way back up the alley, Orion paused at the entrance to Knockturn Alley.

"I should really pay a call into Great Uncle Herbert," he said to Walburga. "There's really no need for you and Sirius to come along. Why don't you stop at Fortescue's and enjoy some ice cream, and I'll meet you there in a few minutes?"

Sirius knew very well that his father simply didn't want him to know about whatever it was he was getting at Borgin and Burkes, the store his great-great uncle owned, but as one of his goals for the day had been getting an ice cream sundae, he wasn't likely to complain. If his mother's cross expression was anything to judge by, his father's detour might also have the benefit of transferring her ire from Sirius to Orion.

Sirius gave his mother his most endearing smile, the one he always used when he wanted to be allowed a treat or when he needed to get out of trouble, and took her arm as they walked to the ice cream parlor. If he played his a cards right, he might just be able to go to Gambol and Japes after all.

After quite a bit of fuss when Walburga insisted that she had to perform thorough cleaning charms on every surface before they could sit at one of the outdoor tables, Sirius and his mother had settled outside of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor with their sundaes. They were enjoying a silence the nature of which Sirius wasn't entirely sure. Waburga was capable of enjoying comfortable, companionable silences with her son, but they were few and far between. It was much more likely that she was quite cross with him about the owl and giving him the silent treatment in public so she wouldn't draw attention to their disagreement, but that she would erupt as soon as they were in the privacy of their own home. She wasn't glaring at him or giving him any cross looks, but Sirius thought that it was best to make sure he was on her good side all the same.

He transferred his spoon to his left hand and placed his right on his mother's arm where she would see the Black family ring on his finger. "Mother," he said, "I'm really glad that Father had to do an errand for Grandfather, because I like it when we can spend time together just us."

The softening of her face, a slight lessening of the frown lines that were just beginning to appear between her eyebrows, was much subtler even than Arcturus's expressions, but Sirius noticed it nonetheless.

"I'm going to miss you when you're at school." She patted his hand. Sirius thought that he was successfully out of the woods, but then the lines reappeared suddenly on her brow. "How do you know that your father is doing an errand for Arcturus?"

Sirius stared at her for a moment, taken off guard. He had thought it was obvious, but then again he knew that his parents liked to keep him sheltered from their goings on that weren't quite socially acceptable except among other pure-blood families who practiced the Dark Arts. Arcturus, Orion, and his uncles thought that he should be involved in their dealings, but his mother, for all that she was probably more devoted to the traditional ways than even the men in the family, thought he was too young to be dragged through Knockturn Alley or to take part in shady business deals. Though she did make sure that his grandfather was teaching him some of the Arts and letting him handle artifacts in the safety of Grimmauld Place during their lessons together, he wasn't supposed to be told anything further.

Sirius was saved from responding by a sudden yelp of his name from somewhere on the increasingly crowded street.

"Sirius!"

Two heads of glossy black hair spun around to find the source of the disturbance. There was a young boy approaching through the crowd, his unkempt dark hair becoming even more tousled by the jostling of adults much larger than he was. Sirius smiled, a genuine expression of happiness to see the other boy. Walburga's face was suddenly a perfect mask of politeness, with the exception of her thin lips, which she couldn't help but press together reflexively in displeasure.

Sirius waited until the boy was closer to the table, as his mother wouldn't be very happy at all if he shouted across Diagon Alley, then addressed his friend, "Hello, Evan! Shopping for Hogwarts?"

The boy showed his white, slightly crooked teeth. "Yes, I was just coming out of Madam Malkin's and saw you here across the street. That shop girl was perfectly horrid, wasn't she?"

"I didn't go into Madam Malkin's, so I wouldn't know," Sirius told him.

"We went to Twilfitt and Tatting's," broke in Walburga. "Their robes are of much better quality."

Evan smiled pleasantly and greeted Walburga, as he had neglected to do it earlier. Apparently he didn't catch onto Walburga's jibe about the quality of his robes, but the woman who had just stopped beside him did. Mrs. Rosier had walked across the street at a much more respectable pace than her son, and had just reached the group in time to hear Walburga's remark. Her olive complexion was suffused with color, though whether from embarrassment, anger, or both Sirius couldn't have said. He knew that his own cheeks were probably red with anger at his mother, and he made sure she caught his angry glance.

Mrs. Rosier gave the other woman a tight smile. "Hello, Madam Black. We'll stop in at Twilfitt and Tatting's later this afternoon. It's much more sensible to use Madam Malkin's for everyday robes so your nicer robes aren't splattered with potions ingredients or covered in dirt from Herbology class, don't you agree?"

"Indeed," replied Walburga, her lips pursing together just a bit more, "very sensible."

Sirius knew that she was thinking it was only sensible for people who couldn't afford a full wardrobe of high quality robes, or to replace ones that were ruined in potions mishaps or Care of Magical Creature accidents. Fortunately she wouldn't say such a direct insult out loud. At least not when the target of her criticism was her sister-in-law's family and Aunt Druella would probably hear about it if she insulted the woman.

Sirius gave his friend a grin that was a bit more forced than it had been earlier and tried to change the subject. "So you started at the Leaky Cauldron? I started on the other end, so I haven't been to the apothecary or the bookstore yet."

"No, Madam Malkin's is the first place we've been." Evan returned Sirius's smile and they shared a look of understanding about their embarrassing mothers.

"Oh," cut in Sirius's half of the embarrassing pair, "then did you just arrive? I must say that I'm quite surprised to see you here at all at this time of day. I thought that Evan stays with Druella while you go to your job." She said job in the same tone Sirius had heard her use to describe a Muggle establish.

Mrs. Rosier's eyes narrowed, though her polite smile remained plastered to her face. "This time of year is quite slow at the Department of International Magical Cooperation. It was no trouble at all to take a half day, and my Evan has been desperate to come shopping since he received his letter on Monday."

"I've been begging Mother and Father to bring me since Monday, too," Sirius said rather loudly, desperate to interrupt before his mother could open her mouth again.

"I just want my wand!" Evan replied with equal energy. "Have you got yours yet?"

Sirius immediately released his new wand from the holster on his arm. The movement was still novel and he didn't catch it perfectly in his hand, but it was smoother than it had been when he'd first tried it. He'd only had his wand for a couple of hours, after all. He smiled in contentment as he gripped the wood. It had been worth the wait. The grooves in the handle and even its square shape seemed to have been carved especially to fit his hand. It was absolutely perfect. It just felt _right_ to hold it, and he couldn't wait to perform magic with it. He hoped that neither Evan nor his mother asked to hold it, because he couldn't imagine letting anyone else handle _his_ wand.

Fortunately neither asked him to relinquish it, though Evan did come around the table to get a better look, much to Walburga's well-masked consternation. The conversation carried on in this vein for several more minutes, with the ladies carrying on with a thin veil of civility and the boys trying to redirect them, until Walburga stood suddenly.

"There's Orion. We really must be going so we can finish shopping before this place is overrun," she declared. Sirius knew she meant overrun with low-class people, and she included Mrs. Rosier and her son in that group.

"Well, it was lovely running into you." If it had been anyone other than Walburga Black, Mrs. Rosier's tone would have served as a rebuke for the incivility of not taking her leave politely. As it was, in fact, Walburga Black, she simply nodded and motioned Sirius to come along.

Sirius offered his friend an apologetic smile. "Bye, Evan! I guess I'll see you on the Hogwarts Express."

"You'll see me before then," his friend informed him. "Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella are taking me to the station since Mother and Father have to work, so I'll be at your family's breakfast that morning."

Sirius was very happy to hear that, because he had not been looking forward to arriving with his older cousins and having to seek out people his own age to sit with on the train. This way he could just stay with Evan the whole time. Mrs. Rosier, on the other hand, visibly sighed at her son's revelation. Evan might or might not have realized that he had just given Walburga Black victory in the confrontation by telling her that his parents couldn't even take him to the Hogwarts Express on September first, but his mother certainly did.

Sirius took his own mother's arm and led her away before the situation could get any worse, waving back at his friend as they left. They were barely far enough away that the pair couldn't hear them before Walburga spoke.

"You know I don't like you associating with that Rosier boy."

"Mother," Sirius's voice came out on almost a whine, "he's my _friend_. And he's Aunt Druella's nephew."

They met Orion in time for him to hear the beginning of his wife's well-rehearsed tirade about how her brother never should have married that Rosier girl to begin with. "Oh, poor Druella isn't to blame for the circumstances of her birth, of course," she was sure to repeat, though they had heard her say so countless times in the past already. "Just the same, I told Cygnus that he ought to make sure she would break ties with her family or else he ought not to marry her. And now look at how they have to take that dreadful boy of her brother's into their home every day, because his parents are impoverished and have to work." Free of the company she was criticizing, when she said the word work Walburga's expression took on the look of someone who had smelled something particularly nasty. "And the wife! _Greek_, can you imagine? What on earth was wrong with the perfectly pure-blooded girls here in our own country, or even France if he didn't like anyone while he was at Hogwarts?"

Sirius didn't think that Evan was dreadful at all, though he was certainly not as refined as Walburga would have liked, and he thought that the olive complexion he had inherited from his beautiful mother was quite nice looking. And his friend had enough toys and new things that he didn't think the Rosiers could be impoverished, though he had never spent time with anyone who was so he wasn't sure what it would be like. However, to Walburga, anyone who did not have a high security vault at Gringotts and could not afford brand new custom robes for every occasion must be poor.

As they always did, Sirius and Orion exchanged looks halfway between amusement and exasperation.

"Though the elder Mr. Rosier's _connections_ certainly make up for some of the family's lack of wealth and sophistication," finished Walburga. There was an inflection on the word connections that Sirius couldn't quite understand.

He glanced up at her, confused. "What connections?"

His mother and father shared a look that he recognized as the one they used when they agreed that he wasn't old enough to know something.

"Nothing at all, son. Nothing important," Orion deflected, his large hand coming to rest on Sirius's shoulder. "How about we head to Gambol and Japes now, before we start back up the alley to finish your school list? I'll buy you anything you want today, but tomorrow you must start managing your own money."

Sirius didn't intend to forget his question or to let it go indefinitely, but he wasn't about to argue his way out of _carte blanche_ at the joke shop. He agreed happily and the family moved towards the shop that had been his ultimate goal since that morning, besides Ollivanders and the owl shop of course. Now that he was guaranteed a trip to Gambol and Japes by his father, Sirius felt that it was safe to bring up possible names for his new owl despite his mother's ire over his choice. The three chatted about it with varying degrees of enthusiasm as they walked across the alley.


	2. Turn the Other Way

**Author's Note:** This chapter contains some lines lifted directly, as well as some general ideas but not direct quotations, from _Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone_ and _Deathly Hallows_. As the disclaimer states, I do not own any of these.

* * *

The morning of September first found Sirius Black fidgeting in the first floor drawing room, waiting for the rest of his family to come down. It wasn't that they were late. Grandfather Pollux was far too punctual for anyone to be late; breakfast always started promptly at eight, and his family would only start showing up just before then. Rather it was that Sirius was early. It was perhaps the only time in his life that he'd been early for anything of his own accord, but he'd been so excited the night before that he'd woken up at four o'clock and not been able to fall back to sleep. He had read some of his Transfiguration textbook until six thirty, when he'd gone ahead and begun his preparations for the day.

Now he was pacing from one end of the gray and black rug to the other, because he hadn't been able to sit still for more than a minute or two.

At seven fifty his mother appeared in the doorway. "Sirius," she said, stopping short when she noticed him, clearly astonished that he was already downstairs. "I just sent Kreacher upstairs to get you."

The house-elf popped into the room just then, Sirius's things along with him. He was wringing his hands and, Sirius assumed, getting ready to punish himself for failing to carry out his mother's order.

"I was already here, Kreacher," he told the elf. "Don't bother punishing yourself."

It wasn't that he particularly cared whether or not the elf hurt itself—in fact, it was quite funny to watch—but Walburga appreciated it when he was nice to it.

Orion appeared next, Regulus on his heels. "Ah, your school things are already down here," said Orion. "Are you sure you've packed everything?"

Sirius replied that he was, as he had already been packed for three days and checked again and triple checked at his mother's behest. He wasn't sure if she was really that concerned over him forgetting something or if she just had been running out of ways to distract him as September first approached and everything at home seemed to bore him. In recent weeks, Sirius had taken to setting up elaborate booby traps around the house using the supplies his father had bought for him in Diagon Alley in July and the additional ones he had bought when Bellatrix had taken him again in August. Originally Regulus and Kreacher had been his targets, and he had managed to get them with everything from buckets full of water that wouldn't dry to itching powder. His mother had tried to stop him, but his father and grandfather hadn't seen the harm.

That is, until Arcturus had accidentally sat in some of Sirius's Bulbadox Powder. There hadn't been any effects until later, as it only affected skin but had only touched his grandfather's robes. Arcturus must have been sprinkling the powder as he went, because no less than a law wizard, a witness, and two Wizengamot members had appeared to spontaneously burst into boils throughout the day. No one had known the cause, until Arcturus had gone to use the facilities and had broken into boils himself on a most uncomfortable part of his body. He had immediately used a cleaning charm on himself and come straight home, bellowing Sirius's name as he stormed into his potions lab to retrieve a boil cure potion. After that, Walburga had any number of mundane tasks for Sirius to perform and re-perform at the slightest hint that he was bored, though Sirius had heard her quite sweetly repeat Arcturus's own words back to him about the lack of harm from boyhood pranks before she'd agreed to keep her son entertained.

Regulus surveyed Sirius's things with a jealous eye. "Where's your owl?"

"Aquilina decided to fly to Hogwarts. She didn't want to be in that cramped cage all day."

There was a snort from Walburga, and Sirius grinned. He had named his owl after the constellation Aquila both because it was in keeping with the Blacks' normal naming procedure and because it meant eagle. He'd found it incredibly funny to name her after an eagle when his mother had been so set on him getting an eagle owl. Indeed, his mother's red face the first time she'd ever heard him address the owl by her new name had been well worth his effort. If asked, Walburga Black would insist that she never snorted, and she certainly never flushed.

His grandfather's most sickeningly sweet tone came from the direction of the doorway. "Is something wrong, Walburga?"

"Why would something be wrong?" she asked, matching his tone and turning to stare at him.

He raised an eyebrow. "My dear woman, I am merely worried at the most alarming noise I heard."

He was exaggerating, of course. It had its intended effect as Walburga spluttered angrily and insisted that she had no idea what he was talking about. Sirius grinned at his grandfather behind his mother's back. No one could get under his mother's skin like Arcturus could, because she felt that no one except Arcturus was in a position to look down on her. Orion could not condescend to her, because she was his wife and their wizarding marriage was equal in every way. To her mind, even her own father, Pollux, could no longer be considered above her, because she had married the heir to the Black fortune. Arcturus, however, was the patriarch of the Black family as long as he lived and was therefore above either her or his own son, as he reminded her constantly. As soon as Walburga looked away from him, the older man winked at Sirius.

"I don't know why I bought this bloody thing," Orion was grumbling as he shrunk Aquilina's cage so that it fit neatly just inside Sirius's trunk, on top of all the carefully packed items already inside it. "That owl has never used it."

"It wouldn't do not to have a cage. Other people would wonder at it," Walburga declared. "Besides, I bought it, not you."

Orion opened his mouth to respond, but his father beat him to it. "I believe I bought it, as every last Sickle in that vault belongs to me until the day I die, which I'm sure will not happen nearly as soon as you would like, Daughter." Though nothing about his tone conveyed it, everyone in the room knew that he called her daughter in the most sarcastic way imaginable. "In any case, Aquilina will be happy for her cage in the Hogwarts owlery. I had my owl's cage spelled so that only she could use it and, when inside it, it was as dark and quiet as the inside of a tree in the loneliest forest. I did the same for Sirius."

"If Hogwarts is that bad, she could just stay here," came Regulus's petulant voice.

Everyone ignored him, as they knew he was simply jealous that his brother should be going to Hogwarts and getting his own owl when Regulus himself could not.

Sirius nodded. "Yes, Grandfather did it for me because he said owls can't get into the Slytherin dorms, so poor Aquilina could never have a break from all the other owls."

"Why can't owls get into Slytherin?" his brother asked, but no one answered because just at the same moment Walburga exclaimed, "Oh my, it's seven fifty-seven already! Quickly, everyone, gather your things. Quickly!"

Sirius had already gathered everything he was taking, so as his father, mother, and brother flitted around them, he stepped closer to his grandfather. Arcturus wouldn't be coming to the family breakfast, because it was more strictly for Pollux's immediate family, most particularly his grandchildren. Of course Grandmother Irma had sent an invitation along to Arcturus, as it was the respectful thing to do, but Sirius's two grandfathers really wouldn't have wanted to willingly sit in a room together for anything less than a wedding, birth, or funeral. For the first time since he'd received his Hogwarts letter a month and a half before, Sirius felt anxious about going to school and felt the prick of tears beginning behind his eyes. He held them back through sheer determination.

"Come, my boy, let's have none of that," said Arcturus, recognizing the sheen in his grandson's stormy eyes.

He placed his hand on Sirius's shoulder, and Sirius began to raise his arm to do the same, though his own hand wouldn't quite reach the man's shoulder. However, the next moment he felt himself being pulled forward. He resisted for a second out of confusion and the briefest of reactions that he must be falling, but then his grandfather's other arm went around his back. He realized with a jolt that the man was hugging him. He couldn't remember Arcturus ever having done that before. Before he got over his shock and was able to bring his own arms around his grandfather, the man had already pulled back and placed his second hand on Sirius's other shoulder. Matching gray gazes locked onto each other's, and Arcturus's mouth pulled upwards just slightly at the corners.

"You have worked very hard these past nine months," the older Black told him, "and I am sure that you will make your family proud."

Regulus appeared at his grandfather's elbow, his black eyes flashing with envy and his mouth twisted downwards in a frown.

"We're going to be late if you don't hurry."

With his last goodbyes said, Sirius stepped out into the foyer (the only point in the house from which one could Apparate outside) and gripped his father's arm as his brother grasped Walburga's.

The sensation of Apparition was much worse than when they had traveled to Diagon Alley, because Grandfather Pollux and Grandmother Irma's house was in Tutshill, in Gloucestershire, which was almost all the way to Wales. Sirius miserably tried to clutch at his chest for long seconds that felt like minutes, absolutely sure that his eyeballs were going to be sucked back into his brain and that his ears were going to implode. Then suddenly he landed hard on his feet and pitched forward, only stopped by his father's strong arm linked with his.

His parents disentangled from their children and rushed forward to greet his grandparents. Sirius stood in place with his head bowed, wanting a few seconds by himself so he could catch his breath and blink the water from his eyes before he faced everyone. Shiny black shoes come into his line of sight, stopping very close to him.

"When I turn eleven I'm going to have almost a whole year to train with Grandfather," said Regulus, his voice full of sneering condescension and low enough that the other occupants in the room couldn't hear. "I'll be better than you at everything, just like I'm better than you at Apparating."

It was true; Regulus had never had any problems with the sensation of Apparition, whereas Sirius had always struggled with it and thought that he probably always would.

"Maybe you will," he replied, not wanting to take the bait today of all days. He knew that his brother was just feeling bad about having to watch Sirius get to experience everything while he still had to wait for two more years before he could.

But Regulus would not let it go. "I'll be the favorite then, and I'll get all the attention. We'll move you into the servant's quarters with Kreacher, and I'll get the biggest eagle owl there is and it will kill your stupid owl."

Regulus had never said any such thing to him before, and the threat to his familiar enraged Sirius more than any cruel words directed at him personally. When he spoke his own voice was full of malice, and when he met his younger brother's gaze his normally bright gray eyes had darkened to the color of a thundercloud.

"No matter what you ever do, I'll always be the favorite, because I'll always be smarter, handsomer, richer, and _older_. Grandfather will never hug _you_," he spat out nastily.

Regulus jerked backwards as though Sirius had hit him.

"Sirius!" shouted Pollux Black. Even though Sirius was quite used to his maternal grandfather's volume, he was so caught up in his altercation with Regulus that he was taken by surprise and jumped at the address. "Come let me look at you!"

Sirius trod on his brother's toe as he moved past him.

Even though Pollux had called him over, he stepped up to his grandmother first and put his arms around her as he kissed her cheek. Irma Crabbe was a large woman, so his arms didn't reach all the way around, and she had to lean down as he stretched on his tiptoes to reach her face. He didn't get to formally greet Pollux, because as soon as Sirius stepped out of his grandmother's embrace the man was speaking again.

"You look more like my father by the day," he boomed. "I'd recognize those cheekbones anywhere."

"He looks like my father-in-law," Walburga interjected.

Pollux leveled a glared at his daughter. "Well, where do you think my cousin got his looks? The Weasleys?"

Walburga began to say, "Father, you can't say it's a bad—" but her father's loud voice easily drowned her out when he declared, "I bet Arcturus gave you those Muggle rags, too!"

The trouble with dressing for today had been that the clothing had to be something appropriate for his stuffy grandparents' formal breakfast yet also comfortable enough that he wouldn't mind wearing it for hours on the train. To make matters even more complicated, it had to be something suitable for Muggles to see, as they had to pass through the Muggle King's Cross station to reach platform nine and three-quarters. His Grandfather Pollux and Grandmother Irma did not mix well with Muggle-appropriate attire. Or with Muggle-appropriate anything, for that matter. He was hardly wearing rags, but his grandparents would think that his black shirt and gray trousers were pitiful just for not being robes.

"Now, Pollux, you know that the Ministry doesn't like us to wear robes around the Muggles," Orion stepped in. He was dressed perfectly in gray trousers with a green shirt and Slytherin-style tie.

"In my day we didn't care what Muggles thought!" harrumphed Pollux.

"Soon enough we won't care once more." Bellatrix had stepped up to the group and wrapped her arm around Sirius's shoulders as she spoke. "But we won't fix the problem this morning, so perhaps we had better go ahead and step into the dining room."

Bellatrix was undoubtedly Pollux's favorite grandchild, Sirius's gender notwithstanding, because she was the one who most agreed with him. And by extension with Sirius's own mother, his eldest child. Therefore, he took her advice easily enough, and soon the family was crossing into the formal dining room and sitting at the heavy oak table.

Conversation revolved around Hogwarts, and there was a particular focus on what Sirius (and Evan, though no one paid much attention to him) could expect, as there always was when there was a first year in the family. This was despite the fact that they had all heard it multiple times already as his three cousins were preparing for their first years. Fortunately it didn't take long until the adults were reminiscing with one another and not paying very much attention to the children at all, and Sirius was able to hold a quiet conversation with his friend.

"Did you get any sleep last night?"

"No," barked out Sirius, half laughing. "You?"

Evan smiled, less sheepishly than before. "Not a wink."

But all too soon they were interrupted by their Uncle Cygnus shouting, "_What_ boy?"

All other conversations at the table came to an abrupt halt.

Both Sirius and Evan looked further up the table, to where everyone was staring as Narcissa blushed and Andromeda watched her sister with a guilty look on her face. Narcissa was even paler than most of the Blacks, and the red across her cheeks stood out starkly against her porcelain skin and blonde hair. Cygnus's own face was even redder than his daughter's, though with an impending fury rather than embarrassment.

"The Malfoy boy, dear," Aunt Druella informed him calmly. Her husband gaped at her, clearly surprised and unimpressed that she'd known about it.

Pollux's words drowned out whatever response his son might have been capable of making. "What about the Malfoy boy?" When no one answered immediately, he turned to his middle granddaughter and demanded, "You there, girl, tell me what you were talking about."

Andromeda shot another apologetic look at her younger sister before bravely meeting her grandfather's eyes. "I was just teasing Cissy about inviting Lucius to sit with her on the train, telling her that it's what she ought to do if she likes the boy."

"She doesn't like any boy!" roared Cygnus, but his wife shushed him and his mother spoke up for the first time to exclaim, "Oh hush! That's a very good match, Cygnus!"

Walburga ignored all of the commotion around her and addressed her niece directly, inquiring, "This is Abraxas's eldest son?"

Narcissa was too overcome with her father's reaction to answer. Cissy didn't like it unless everyone was pleased with her. At her father's glare, she ducked her head down even further, eyes staring intently at her plate now.

"It's his only son," Bellatrix stepped in for her sister. "His only child, in fact. He's friends with Rodolphus's younger brother Rabastan." Their father turned to look at her. "Same year, you know. I'm sure he's just as respectful of my sister as Roddy is to me."

Which was not at all what Cygnus would want to hear if he knew what really went on between his eldest daughter and her fiancé, Sirius thought, recalling the way the couple had snogged when Rodolphus had briefly met them when Bellatrix had taken him down into Knockturn Alley a few weeks earlier. He didn't know a lot about kissing, but he certainly knew a lot more after that display.

But everyone else seemed to accept Bellatrix's statement at face value.

Walburga nodded thoughtfully, and Pollux said, "That is a good match, then. Old family, old money. Plus we haven't had a marriage between the families in centuries."

"Twelve generations," Walburga helpfully informed the table. She had memorized most of the Black family tree, as the tapestry that magically recorded it hung in Arcturus's personal drawing room at Grimmauld Place. "I haven't kept up with their family since Althea died, because she and Abraxas never had any daughters and he's never remarried…." she trailed off, but Sirius knew she was thinking that a pure-blooded family without daughters wasn't any use to her in marrying off her perfect pure-blooded sons. He rolled his eyes, though no one took any notice.

"He's a very nice boy," Narcissa finally spoke up, her voice so quiet that Sirius had to strain to hear her from his place further down the table. Then she looked up, and her voice grew stronger as she kept speaking. "We were partners in Potions and Herbology last year. He's very lonely at home since it's just him and his father there, so I've been writing him all summer. He was chosen this year to be the other Slytherin prefect, so I'm sure we'll be spending a lot of time together this year, too."

Bellatrix laughed. "And _are_ you going to ask him to sit with you on the train?"

Cygnus's head swiveled back around so he could stare at his youngest daughter.

Narcissa's blush deepened, but she bravely held her father's gaze as she said, "I already invited him in a letter last month, and he replied that he would."

"It's settled, then!" Druella exclaimed cheerfully. "You'll introduce us to him on the platform. And a prefect! How lovely."

"Mother," Narcissa said sternly, "you can't scare him off talking about marriage or what a good match it would be. We're only fifteen."

Grandmother Irma cried, "Nonsense! I was engaged to your grandfather when I was fifteen, and Walburga would have been engaged to Orion much sooner if he hadn't been four years younger."

What followed was an extended conversation about the Black family tree and memories of each of the adults' own marriages, which was really more a lecture that all of the children were expected to attend rather than a friendly chat. Sirius chanced a glance at Evan, who looked to be fighting to keep a grin off of his full lips. He couldn't hide the laugh in his eyes as his hazel gaze met Sirius's gray, though. For his part, Sirius was torn between laughing at his family himself and being embarrassed that his friend was witness to this particular conversation. Evan might be his aunt's nephew, but he wasn't a Black, and he usually wasn't present at such intimate family functions.

The uncomfortable conversation continued until the gilded monstrosity of a clock on the mantle struck ten o'clock, and the breakfast was declared officially over. The Hogwarts Express left the station promptly at eleven, but everyone, including the adults, liked to have time to mingle with other families on the platform. The family adjourned back to the main drawing room in preparation for their departure.

"Now, as everyone knows, this is Sirius's first year at Hogwarts," Pollux boomed across the room. "I see that you've already received your ring." Sirius wasn't sure if his grandfather's expression when he looked at the ring was one of pleasure or displeasure, but it only lasted a second before the man continued. "My family has its own traditions, and so your grandmother and I would like to give you this."

He snapped his fingers and a house-elf that Sirius hadn't noticed before approached him carrying a small box. He took it and opened it to reveal an elaborate silver-colored tiepin. It was shaped like a serpent, curling around in a sort of S-shape without being too obvious, with every scale carved out in exquisite detail so that it looked like it might come alive and slither away at any moment. Its eye was an emerald, the green standing out vibrantly against the silver.

"My father gave me one just like it, you see," said Pollux, and Sirius looked up as the man gestured to his own tie, where he noticed his grandfather's tiepin for the first time.

His Uncle Cygnus gestured to his tie as well. "Father gave me one before I left for Hogwarts, and Alphard has one, too."

Sirius noticed that his mother had to visibly work to keep herself from commenting on Alphard's absence from the family breakfast. He was glad she managed not to say anything, because it would have ruined the moment.

Instead, she rushed over to him and took the tiepin from its box before carefully positioning it in his tie. "There now, that looks very handsome," she declared as she ran her hands over him to smooth the non-existent wrinkles in his clothing.

Sirius thanked his grandparents, shaking his grandfather's hand rather formally but giving his grandmother another hug and kiss (which was much easier when she was sitting down), and then moved on to say goodbye to Bellatrix, who had no desire to go to King's Cross since she was neither a student nor a parent. She hugged him rather more forcefully than was proper.

"You should try and make friends with some of the older Slytherins," she told him quietly as the rest of the family said their goodbyes to each other. "I don't know of any important people in your year"—Sirius didn't interrupt even though he thought that she was being quite unfair to Evan—"but you should get Narcissa to introduce you to Rabastan and Malfoy in her year, and they can point you in the right direction."

Sirius assured her that he would, even though he sincerely doubted that anyone in fifth year would want to have much to do with a first year. He supposed that Bellatrix must know better than him, because she'd already finished Hogwarts and knew how things worked.

Then his uncle was yelling about the time and his mother was dragging him away as they prepared to Apparate to King's Cross, and Sirius only had one last glance at the rest of his family before he felt the familiar yet sickening tug of Apparition.

* * *

"I still don't know why we can't just Apparate directly onto the platform," Aunt Druella was complaining as they trudged through the train station.

It must have been a rhetorical complaint, because no one bothered to respond to it as they made their way through the throng of Muggles towards platforms nine and ten. Sirius had never really been around Muggles before, except for passing some of them on the street whenever they left Grimmauld Place by the front door, but that was very rare because they could just Apparate or Floo to wherever they needed to go. They all looked very normal, he thought, despite what his parents and grandparents frequently told him about all of them being uncivilized and dirty. He did see one man with tatty clothes and greasy, ratty hair pushing a cart full of what looked like trash, and that man smelled very bad like he hadn't had a bath in ages, but the other Muggles all appeared well kept and even the rest of them seemed to be avoiding the dirty one.

There was the fact that none of them were wearing robes or hats, of course, but Sirius already knew that Muggles and wizards dressed differently. He and his family must have done a good job of dressing like they were supposed to, because they didn't seem to be attracting any more attention than Sirius was used to when he went out.

On the other side of the large space from his family, Sirius saw another wizard family pushing carts with their trunks and even their owl in its cage. They were attracting rather a lot of attention despite appearing to Sirius's eyes to be properly dressed. He wasn't sure why until he heard a snippet of conversation from some of the Muggles passing by him.

"—owl, how strange—"

He supposed Muggles must not keep owls as pets and determined that as soon as he met a Muggle-born he would ask how they delivered their mail. Surely Muggles had mail.

Soon enough they were standing between platforms nine and ten, and Sirius watched as his aunt, uncle, and cousins all disappeared onto platform nine and three-quarters.

"Now," said Orion, pointing at the barrier, "we just think about the platform on the other side and walk right through."

His parents began walking arm in arm, and Sirius and Evan fell into step beside them. He watched curiously as the barrier got closer and closer, though he wasn't anxious at all. He could not grow up around magic and still be the least bit suspicious when told that they wouldn't actually hit something as trifling as a brick wall. Sure enough, the wall seemed to shimmer and dematerialize all of a sudden, and all at once Sirius found himself standing on a crowded platform in front of a great scarlet steam engine. People were standing in groups all down the platform, some catching up with friends and others loading trunks onto the train.

The rest of the family was standing together just inside the entrance, and once Sirius and the others joined them they all started off towards the back of the train. Apparently there was something of an argument going on about Sirius himself.

"—already going to have a full compartment," Andromeda was saying.

Narcissa shot Sirius an apologetic look. "Us, too. Lucius and I have to spend the beginning of the journey in the prefects' carriage anyway, so he can't sit with us. After that, we'll be sharing a compartment with both my friends and his friends."

Sirius was a bit annoyed that neither of his cousins appeared to want to sit with him, but he didn't really feel that he needed them in the first place. He said as much.

"Besides," he added, "it would probably be a good idea to meet some people in my own year. Evan and I can sit together."

That decided, Sirius, Evan, and his parents walked further down the platform alone as Andromeda found her friends and the rest of the family was stopped by Narcissa so they could talk to two tall blond wizards, the younger of which was obviously this Lucius character that had caused such a commotion at breakfast. When they found an empty compartment two-thirds of the way down the train, Orion enlarged Sirius's trunk and levitated it onto the luggage rack above the seat. It was then that they realized they didn't have Evan's things.

"Uncle Cygnus has my trunk," he told Sirius's parents, who promptly decided that they would fetch it.

"You two stay here and make sure no one steals your compartment," Walburga told them. "Orion and I will go and say hello to Abraxas Malfoy, and we'll come back to say goodbye and bring Evan's trunk with us."

And so the two of them were left alone on the Hogwarts Express for the first time. The time passed quicker than Sirius would have thought as he and his friend laughed about what had happened at breakfast, occasionally sneaking glances out the window at the great meeting of Blacks and Malfoys happening on the platform, and then started talking about the upcoming year and what they could expect.

Evan was particularly nervous about the Sorting Ceremony. "What do you think happens?" he asked. "I tried to get the girls to tell me, but Bellatrix would only say that it's only slightly painful and only hurts for a few minutes."

Sirius couldn't help but laugh. "She was just teasing you. There's a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ in the library at home that says they sort using this old hat, plus when I asked him about it Grandfather told me that they just put it on your head and it yells out which house you're supposed to be in."

Evan frowned. "Why would she tease about that, though?"

"Belley's just like that sometimes," replied Sirius.

In truth, he knew that Bellatrix usually reserved her cruelty for people she felt were beneath her, and he was surprised that she included her cousin Evan in that group. Sirius had heard enough of his own mother's ranting and raving on the subject to know everything that was unsuitable about Evan Rosier, but he hadn't thought that Bellatrix would feel the same way given that her mother was Evan's aunt.

"Do you have two seats available in here?" asked a boy who had come to stand in the doorway to their compartment. He was very skinny, with skin even paler than Sirius's and dull, dark hair that hung down around his face. There was a girl standing slightly behind him, peering around his shoulder into the compartment, who had bright red hair.

"Sure," replied Sirius, and the two newcomers moved into the compartment lugging their trunks behind them.

Sirius wondered why they hadn't just magicked them the way his father had done for him, but then again there were no parents in sight so perhaps their parents had just enlarged them to place them on the train. It took the new boy, Evan, and him working all together to get both of the heavy trunks into the overhead compartment. When they were finished, Evan offered a window seat to the girl, and her friend sat across from her, which left Sirius and Evan to sit closer to the door. Sirius opted to sit next to Evan instead of across the compartment from him so that they could converse more easily in case more people joined them.

"Thank you," the redhead was saying. "I'm Lily and this is Severus."

Sirius wondered why Severus couldn't introduce himself. It seemed very odd to him to be letting a girl do your talking for you, because it reminded him of the way his mother and father acted, except they were married so it was all right.

"Sirius," he introduced himself.

Evan smiled. "I'm Evan."

"Oh, how funny!" Lily let out a girlish giggle. "My last name is Evans!"

They were all laughing when Sirius's parents appeared back in the doorway. His father smiled happily at the scene before him, but Walburga did not smile. Her sharp eyes took in the newcomers curiously but with no visible pleasure.

"We brought your trunk, Evan," Orion informed them, which brought the youngsters' laughter to an abrupt halt as they noticed the adults.

"Thank you, sir," the olive-skinned boy replied as Orion levitated his luggage onto the rack.

Walburga ignored her sister-in-law's nephew and turned to her own son. "Who are you new friends, Sirius?"

He was quick to perform the introductions. "Mother, this is Lily Evans and Severus—er, actually I don't know his last name. Lily and Severus, these are my parents, Orion and Walburga Black."

It was clear that Severus recognized the name, because he gaped at Sirius for a moment in surprise before regaining control of himself.

"Snape," he said, finally. "My last name is Snape."

Orion turned to look at his wife. "Snape? Isn't that—"

"Yes," she interrupted him, her thin lips pressing together in the way that Sirius recognized as displaying her displeasure, "that's the name of the _Muggle_ Eileen ran away with."

She said Muggle as if she was speaking about a particularly disgusting bug, and Severus's face lost what little color it had held. Walburga either did not notice the boy's distress or did not care.

"So she had a son, did she?" She rather more spat it out than asked it. "I suppose one of her letters to me might have said that, but of course I threw them all into the fire instead of reading them."

Sirius was staring at his mother in open astonishment, while Severus was watching her with a frightening mix of fascination and embarrassment. Lily, for her part, was torn between sending sympathetic, worried looks to her friend and glaring angrily at the woman who had caused him distress. Evan didn't seem to know what to do, so he was looking at all of the occupants of the compartment in turn, an uncomfortable yet curious look on his face.

Orion took his wife's arm and used the authoritative tone of voice that Sirius knew might hold back Walburga's outburst if they were lucky.

"Yes, yes, it was a horrible falling out, very unfortunate," he said quickly, then looked visibly relieved as the train's whistle sounded loudly and interrupted him. "Ah," he said, once the noise had died down, "well we had better get off the train, my dear, unless we fancy repeating Hogwarts ourselves!"

He proceeded to facilitate extremely quick final goodbyes with Sirius and shepherd his wife off the train, though he couldn't stop her from telling Sirius one final time, as she was staring pointedly at Severus Snape, that he should remember to "make his family proud." Sirius knew that meant not making friends with a half-blood.

An uncomfortable silence descended on the compartment as the occupants varyingly looked around at each other and then broke off eye contact as soon as it was made. Sirius finally caught Evan's hazel gaze and felt his friend reach for his hand where it rested between them on the seat and squeeze it briefly before letting go. His courage restored, he turned to look at the ashen countenance of Severus Snape.

"I'm sorry about my mother," he said, but at just that moment Severus had also decided to speak and asked, "So you're a Black?"

They stared at one another for a few moments until Sirius realized that the other boy wasn't going to comment on his apology but expected an answer to his own question.

"Yes, obviously," he said.

Severus stared at him with hard black eyes. "Well, my mother always told me that you're a self-important, unpleasant bunch of snobs. I guess she was right."

Sirius felt an immediate swell of indignation and anger in his chest, and he wanted to take out his wand and hex the other boy. He was in a difficult position, he knew, because his mother had all but come out and attacked the other boy and he had every right to be upset, but at the same time Sirius couldn't help the anger he felt at his entire family being insulted. Not to mention he _had_ apologized to Severus Snape, and it wasn't his fault at all if the other boy wanted to be a git about accepting it.

Using every bit of training his family had ever given him about not losing face in front of others, he kept his face as blank as possible and calmly said, "I don't think someone with rags like yours could be an authority on the subject, and I doubt your mother is either or she'd have been too embarrassed to let you leave the house looking like that."

He knew that he was playing into what Snape had said about him, but in the same stroke the boy had shown his own weak point, and Sirius had jabbed directly at it.

Evan laughed. Snape flushed and stood abruptly, storming out of the compartment with only the briefest of comments to his little girlfriend that he'd be back. Evan laughed even harder at that and at the way Lily was glaring at both of them. Sirius laughed too, pretending that he found it all funny instead of upsetting.

When the train began to move a few moments later, Lily turned her attention back out the window and started waving. Sirius presumed it was to her family. He knew that his own family would find it unseemly if he made such a display in front of others, so he stayed in his seat and didn't try and catch a last glimpse of them as the train pulled out of the station.

Just then the compartment door slammed open with a bang, and Sirius looked around warily, expecting it to be Snape. Instead it was a spectacled boy with supremely messy black hair and a large grin on his face, holding an enormous black cat.

"Can I sit here?" he asked. "Some sixth years kicked me out of my compartment."

Sirius and Evan gave their assent, but Lily never turned away from the window.

The boy sat across from Sirius and held out his hand. "Great, thanks! I'm James."

"Sirius." He took the boy's hand, and then watched as Evan did the same and introduced himself. Lily still didn't turn away from the window, and James stared at her in complete confusion for a moment before Sirius told him, "Don't bother," and he shrugged and sat back in his seat.

James quickly forgot the odd girl and turned his grin back on Sirius and Evan. "This is Broadmore." The cat looked up at its name, but then almost immediately went back to grooming itself.

"Broadmore?" asked Evan, shooting Sirius an amused glance.

"After the Beaters, of course!" James seemed offended that anyone would even have to ask the question.

Sirius returned Evan's look. "Why would you name your cat after those dunderheads?"

"Dunderheads!" James cried, looking mortally offended.

Evan finally let out the laugh he'd been holding in. "You'll have to excuse Sirius," he informed the other boy. "He isn't a fan of Falmouth."

James's offended look remained firmly in place, and Sirius cut in to inform him, "I'm a fan of Tutshill."

"The Tornados!" James crossed his arms. "I'll bet you're just a fair-weather fan. Nobody liked them until they started winning."

Sirius laughed then, and Evan let himself fall backwards against the seat as he laughed even harder than he had before. James looked between the two of them in confusion, but Lily still stubbornly refused to look away from the window.

"My grandfather owns the Tornados," Sirius finally informed the other boy in between laughs.

They were still laughing and good-naturedly arguing about Quidditch when the compartment door slid open again, this time much less forcefully than when James had come in. The three boys all ignored Snape's entrance. Sirius and Evan did so pointedly, and James was too busy discussing the state of the British and Irish League for the upcoming season to have paid him any mind. He went to sit beside the other window across from Lily, and Sirius noticed that the boy had changed out of the ratty clothes he had made fun of earlier and into his Hogwarts uniform, which was nowhere near the quality of Sirius's own but still in much better shape than his Muggle clothes. Sirius didn't hear any of the conversation from the other side of the compartment, and he had nearly forgotten that Snape had even re-entered the compartment at all until James's head swiveled around to look at the other boy.

"Slytherin?" he asked with a frown. "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" he directed his question to Sirius and Evan.

Sirius tensed, and he felt Evan's hand brush against his again in another show of comfort. Or perhaps in a silent request for Sirius not to start another fight with James like he'd fought with Snape.

Finally, Sirius replied, "My whole family have been in Slytherin."

"Blimey," said James, "and I thought you seemed all right!"

The Slytherin tiepin suddenly felt very heavy and like it might burn a hole through Sirius's clothes and touch his skin, even though he knew that was absolutely ridiculous and just his imagination. Evan's hand squeezed his tightly.

He grinned, deciding that he didn't want to bring his tally up to three enemies before he even got off the train.

"Maybe I'll break the tradition," he said flippantly, and Evan squeezed even harder in surprise. "Where are you heading, if you've got the choice?"

James lifted an invisible sword.

"'Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!' Like my dad."

Snape's snort was almost but not quite soft enough that the other boys didn't hear it. Sirius and Evan both bristled in anger, because anything Snape had said or done at that point would have been enough to set either of them off again. James beat them to the response.

"Got a problem with that?"

"No," said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. "If you'd rather be brawny than brainy—"

Sirius, quite tired of the smaller boy's insults, interrupted him and asked, "Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?"

He watched in satisfaction as the other boy flushed with anger once more. Evan laughed again and squeezed Sirius's hand once more before letting him go, apparently thinking that the danger was finally over. James roared with laughter. Lily Evans finally turned her attention back to them for the first time since Snape had left the compartment earlier. She was almost as flushed as Snape, and she glared between James and Sirius in open dislike.

"Come on, Severus, let's find another compartment," she said angrily as she rose to her feet.

Sirius thought that her attempt at sounding haughty paled in comparison to the tone of voice his mother used every day, with nearly everyone, and he wasn't impressed at all. He joined James in imitating her, because he knew that it would get under her skin. He watched James try to trip Snape as he attempted to exit the compartment, and Broadmore hissed at the movement of his master's lap and moved to fill Snape's vacated seat.

"See ya, Snivellus!" Evan called out as the boy slammed the compartment door shut behind him.

Sirius and James both laughed at the name.

"Good one!" James said.

The boys spread out more now that they were the only three people occupying the two long bench seats. James propped himself up against one wall and stretched his legs out along the length of the seat, briefly disturbing his cat and earning himself another hiss and a swipe at his newly bared foot. Sirius took one wall and Evan the other, their legs meeting in the middle.

"You'd better not push me off," Sirius warned, as his legs were on the outside of the seat and Evan's were against the backrest.

"I won't," his friend promised, though he playfully nudged at Sirius's legs. "Now, what do you guys think of the new Keeper over at Montrose?"

Conversation returned to Quidditch, the earlier altercation all but forgotten by the time the trolley came around offering refreshments, and the three boys spent the rest of the train ride in lively discussion.

* * *

The enormous castle loomed above them, the bright glow from the hundreds of windows casting the many towers into shadow against the inky sky. After several mishaps and at least one person slipping and soaking his leg up to his knee in the lake, the first years had finally managed to clamber into a number of small boats and were making their way across the vast lake towards the castle. Or rather towards the cliff on which the castle sat.

Sirius, James, and Evan had snagged a boat together, though they were joined by a girl called Janice Edgecomb. She had been gazing at Sirius in undisguised wonder ever since she'd joined them, and though they were all cast in darkness now and couldn't see each other clearly, he could still feel her gaze on him as she chattered away about this and that. He just wished she'd leave him alone. And preferably shut up while she was at it.

"Heads down!" yelled the enormous, hairy man who had corralled all of them into the boats. Sirius ducked his head as they went through a curtain of ivy and underneath the cliff. If he had to duck his head to fit, he wondered how on earth that huge man was fitting under here. Surely he had to lie down in his boat to fit under the cliff? Sirius looked around to see if he could tell, but he couldn't.

They disembarked in a cave that must serve as the harbor for the boats then climbed up a path that was hewn out of the rock until they reappeared on the surface near the castle's giant front doors. The man—he must be a half giant at least, Sirius thought—banged on the wooden door three times, and it finally swung open to reveal a tall, serious witch with her dark hair pulled back into a bun as severe as her expression.

The tall man introduced her as Professor McGonagall, and then she led them through an enormous entrance hall with a grand marble staircase and into a small room where they all had to crowd together to fit comfortably.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "You are about to take part in the Sorting Ceremony, and then we will have a feast to celebrate the start of the new school year. There are four houses—Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin—each with its own history and traditions. No one house is better than another—" Here Evan had to disguise a snort as a cough, and Sirius knew that he was thinking about how the lineages of Slytherin house were superior to any other house. The professor paused just long enough to give his friend a withering glare, then continued as if nothing had happened, "—though you will each be best suited for one house over the others."

"You should think of your house as your surrogate family while you are here. You will live with your house, attend classes with your house, cheer for your house Quidditch team (and maybe even play for it), and spend your free time in your house common room. Furthermore, your good deeds will earn points for your house, while your bad deeds will cause your house to lose points. The house with the most points at the end of the year will win the house cup."

"Are there any questions?"

Sirius could feel a ripple of tension move through the crowd so he knew there were questions, but no one was brave enough to speak up and ask one. Sure enough, as soon as Professor McGonagall had told them that they had a few minutes to freshen up and exited through a different door than the one they'd come in through, whispering broke out among the other first years.

"—wonder what we have to do—"

"—none of the houses are right?"

James nudged him. "Can you believe how afraid they are of a little old hat?"

Evan leaned around Sirius to reply, "Well, not all of them are pure-bloods, you know. I'll bet some of them have no idea what even happens in the Sorting Ceremony."

Sirius stamped down the urge to remind Evan that he hadn't known either until this morning when Sirius had told him, because Evan was his friend and he didn't want to embarrass the other boy in front of James and whoever else might be listening.

True to her word, Professor McGonagall returned a few minutes later and led them all into the Great Hall single-file. They lined up in front of the head table facing all four of the house tables, all of them looking up at the enchanted ceiling. Even Sirius was staring at it in wonder, though he had known all about it from his family and from skimming through the interesting parts of _Hogwarts: A History_. It was different to hear about it and to see it. Later, Sirius couldn't have told anyone what the Sorting Hat had sung or any words that had been spoken, but soon enough the first name was called and the ceremony began.

He barely paid attention as "Avery, William" was Sorted into Slytherin, because his blood was pounding too loudly in his ears, and then suddenly it was his turn.

"Black, Sirius!"

He heard a choking sound from beside him, but he didn't take the time to glance back at James to see what was wrong before he stepped forward towards Professor McGonagall. He sat on the stool facing the student body and saw the encouraging grin of his cousin Andy at the Slytherin table before the hat was placed on his head and fell over his eyes.

"Well," came a voice, "this is certainly interesting. I'm surprised that you're so difficult." Sirius moved his head as if he might be able to see where the voice was coming from, but then he remembered that he couldn't see anyway because of the hat on his head, and he realized all at once that the voice must belong to the Sorting Hat itself. "You've got plenty of courage, but you've also got a keen mind. You're loyal to a fault, so you might do well in Hufflepuff."

Sirius almost choked on his own saliva, thinking that he'd transfer to another school first thing in the morning if he got placed in Hufflepuff.

"Ah, not to worry," said the Sorting Hat, "you aren't patient or steadfast enough to be in Hufflepuff. But which of the other houses would do well for you? Gryffindor or Ravenclaw would both do nicely, though I can see that you don't seek knowledge for its own sake so perhaps—"

What about Slytherin? Sirius thought frantically. All of my family has been in Slytherin!

"Slytherin? I should think not," replied the hat. "Oh, you're cunning enough, of course, but you've not got the ambition of a Slytherin. I can see that you don't think very far into the future at all, and that isn't the mindset of someone who would do well in that house." Before Sirius could form another thought, the hat said, "No, you'd do best in GRYFFINDOR!"

Sirius sat there, stunned. The Great Hall was silent for long moments that to him felt like hours, but all of a sudden cheering erupted from somewhere to his left, starting rather slowly but quickly building up into a raucous cacophony of clapping and shouting and whistling.

He still stayed rooted to the stool unable to move until the Sorting Hat was finally snatched from his head. He felt a small hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him forwards.

"Go on, Black," said Professor McGonagall, sounding much gentler than she had at any point before. "Your house is waiting for you."

He stood on shaky legs and started making his way towards the table on the far left, where students with red-and-gold ties were clapping and cheering for him, some even standing for him as he approached. The walk seemed to take forever, as he felt like his legs had been simultaneously hit with a Jelly-Legs Jinx and turned to lead, but he finally reached the table and sunk down gratefully onto the bench. Greetings came from all around, and several of the older boys clapped him on the shoulders and back in friendly gestures, and Sirius smiled weakly back at all of them.

Lily Evans was sorted into Gryffindor shortly afterward, and Sirius automatically moved down the table to make room for her. He was still in such a state of shock that he didn't even notice when she turned her back to him in a deliberate snub, which surely would have made her even more enraged had she realized that he didn't react in the least.

Finally, when "Greengrass, Eleanor" was sorted into Slytherin, Sirius chanced a look up at the Slytherin table. The entire table was clapping and cheering enthusiastically for their new arrival, except for his cousins. Andy was clapping distractedly, but she was staring right at Sirius and not really paying attention to what was going on around her. Cissy wasn't clapping or cheering at all, just staring at him with undivided attention. Her face was still a perfect picture of surprise and disbelief, and Sirius was sure the expression matched his own.

Then something collided with his shoulder and he broke off eye contact to spin around.

"Oi, budge up, you lot," said James, who had apparently knocked into Sirius on his way further down the table. The older Gryffindors laughed and voiced humorous complaints at the first year's demand, but they made room on the bench all the same. James sat down beside an older boy whom he greeted as if they were old acquaintances. They probably were, Sirius thought, since James was a pure-blood and he was sure that Gryffindors kept social circles outside of Hogwarts just like Slytherins did. James's parents probably knew the older boy's parents.

Sirius still wondered, though, why his new friend hadn't sat beside him, and why he had knocked into him like that. It must have just been an accident, since Sirius couldn't recall having done anything to anger the other boy between spending time together on the train and now.

"Rosier, Evan!"

Sirius turned his attention back to the line at the front of the Great Hall. Evan caught his eye and gave him an uneasy smile as he sat on the stool, but then the Sorting Hat fell down over his eyes and contact was broken. It only took the hat a few seconds to yell out, "SLYTHERIN!"

Sirius felt his stomach plummet even further than it already had. He hadn't really imagined that it would happen, but he had been hoping that his friend would end up sorted into a different house, too. If not Gryffindor, then at least Ravenclaw. Then he wouldn't be the only one. But Evan removed the hat himself, with a huge grin on his face, and all but skipped to the Slytherin table. He didn't meet Sirius's gaze again.

"Snape, Severus" was next, and Sirius watched in undisguised awe and fury as that greasy git was sorted into Slytherin, as Sirius himself should have been. Lucius Malfoy clapped Snape on the back and smiled at him in welcome. Sirius was the one who was supposed to be introduced to Malfoy, as Belley had said. His stomach clenched uncomfortably as he thought of Bellatrix. If Andy and Cissy's reaction were bad, Belley's would be ten times worse. Maybe she would never even speak to Sirius again.

Oh Merlin, he thought, what about his _parents_? Surely they would be bitterly disappointed. Would they be angry with him? And his grandparents? Grandfather Pollux would be furious, Sirius knew, and he could just imagine the cold expression on Grandfather Arcturus's face. Grandfather Arcturus who had only just hugged Sirius that morning and told him that he was sure he would make the family proud. He very much doubted that anyone in his family was going to be proud that he was the first Gryffindor in the family.

He realized that the Sorting Ceremony must be over when food appeared on the table before him. He automatically placed a random assortment of food onto his plate, but later he couldn't remember what any of it was. He remembered that everything he put into his mouth tasted like rubber, so he stopped trying to eat. He remembered that a smallish brown-haired boy had smiled nicely at him, and a chubby blond one had attempted to make conversation, but he couldn't remember actually responding.

Later, when everyone rose from the table almost as one, Sirius stared up at them numbly for a moment before standing alongside them. He followed the crowd as a prefect led them out of the Great Hall and towards the great marble staircase he had noticed earlier. The Slytherins were heading down a different staircase that obviously led into the dungeons, and Sirius had the urge to leave the Gryffindors and follow his family down to the Slytherin common room where he belonged. But then the Slytherins had disappeared and the Gryffindors had reached the stairs, and he found himself being herded along by the crowd as everyone chatted excitedly around him.

After many more staircases and several hidden doors, they finally reached a portrait at the end of a long corridor of a fat lady in a pink dress. Sirius still wasn't really taking anything in as the boys were directed up a spiral staircase until they reached their dormitory, where four beds were hung with red velvet curtains that Sirius thought looked like the same material as his own green bed at home. Just the wrong color.

"You're a _Black_!" accused James.

At the anger in the other boy's voice, Sirius snapped to attention for the first time since he'd been sorted. He briefly really took in his surroundings for the first time. He was still hovering in the doorway, and all of the other boys had moved further into the room. James was standing next to the bed nearest the door, his arms crossed and a glare aimed straight at Sirius. The blond boy was sitting on the next bed watching them. The brown-haired boy was bent over his trunk at the third bed, though he had stopped whatever he was doing to look warily between James and Sirius.

"I—" Sirius felt himself floundering. "Er—Yes, I am."

"Did you not tell me because you knew I wouldn't talk to you if you did? What game are you playing?"

Sirius stared at him in bewilderment. "I—No, I—What do you mean?"

James uncrossed his arms and stalked over to him, stopping feet away so that he could stare right into Sirius's eyes as he said, "You knew I wouldn't talk to you if I knew you were a Black, because I'm a Potter."

"A Potter…" Sirius trailed off for a moment as everything clicked into place for him and he realized who James must be. "But then, you're a Black, too! Or at least your mother is a Black. We're first cousins once removed!"

James made a noise somewhere between anger and disgust.

"I am _not_ a Black! They're Dark wizards! No one in that family has talked to my mother since she married my father, and my parents have raised me up right!"

"But—but your mother is still on the family tapestry," Sirius said, confused, "and your father and you, too. You haven't been blasted off it."

James's own face showed confusion now, but the brown-haired boy beat him to it, asking, "What on earth is a family tapestry?"

Sirius blinked at him, as he had quite forgotten for a moment that there were two others in the room with them.

"It's a magic tapestry that records the Black family tree. You get blasted off of it when you're disowned, and Dorea Black was never blasted off it."

"_Potter_," growled James. "It's Dorea Potter, and she wouldn't want me talking to a Dark wizard." He stomped back over to his bed and threw himself onto it, drawing the bed hangings closed around him. "I'm going to bed."

Sirius was left standing awkwardly in the doorway, staring at the spot where the other boy had disappeared behind his curtain. He had thought they were friends, earlier on the train. They had gotten along very well for the hours it took to go from London to Hogwarts. He hadn't realized that anyone could dislike him so much because of his family. He hadn't even realized that anyone could dislike his family so much in the first place!

"Sirius," said the brown-haired boy, "maybe you should come in and shut the door. I think that's your bed there by the window." He pointed, and indeed Sirius's trunk was sitting at the end of the bed furthest into the room.

As he moved towards it, the other boy stuck out his hand as he passed. "I'm Remus Lupin, by the way." Sirius stared at the proffered hand for a moment before he came to his senses and took it. "I tried to introduce myself at the feast, but you looked to be in shock so I thought it was best to let you be for a while."

"I'll bet he was in shock!" cried the blond, and then he blushed to the roots of his hair when Sirius and Remus both spun around to look at him.

Sirius didn't need to be reminded that he was the first Black to ever not be sorted into Slytherin, much less the first one to end up in Gryffindor of all places. But he didn't need to make another enemy, seeing as he already had one in his dorm, so he stamped down the urge to lash out at the shorter boy.

"Who're you?" he finally asked.

The blond stared at him for a few moments, but finally managed to stutter out that he was called Peter Pettigrew.

"Right," said Sirius, moving again towards his bed, "I'm going to bed, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Maybe when I wake up this will all just have been a nightmare."

He plopped down onto his mattress still fully clothed and dragged the red curtains shut behind him.

* * *

Hours later, Sirius was still awake, unable to sleep for all of his racing thoughts and fears. There was a very good chance that he might actually be disowned, he thought. He was a disgrace to his family, being sorted into Gryffindor like this. His cousins and his friend didn't want to have anything to do with him. His mother would probably go upstairs to blast his name off the tapestry right away. And Sirius would be stuck living in a dorm with James Potter, who hated him and whose mother was still on the tapestry even though Sirius himself wouldn't be any longer.

There was a tapping sound that Sirius thought he was imagining at first, but then it grew more and more insistent and he realized that it was real. He threw back his bed hangings and looked around. All three of the other beds had their curtains firmly shut, and Sirius couldn't see any of his roommates out of bed.

The sound came again, seemingly from behind him, and Sirius spun around. Huge yellow eyes were staring at him, and he leapt backwards in fright.

Then he processed what he was seeing and recognized Aquilina outside his window.

Heart still pounding from the sudden fright, Sirius padded over to the window and let the owl inside. She hooted softly and flew to land on the table beside his bed. Sirius followed her, collapsing face-first onto his mattress and lying there for a moment with his face buried in the bedding, not breathing, until he finally rolled onto his side to face the owl.

"I guess you won't need your cage in the owlery after all," he told her, "seeing as you _can_ get into the Gryffindor dorms."

She cocked her head and considered him, but didn't make a sound.

He took it as answer enough and continued, "Can you imagine, girl? Me in a tower instead of under the lake! I'll bet Andy and Cissy will write to the family first thing in the morning, and then everyone will know, and I'll probably get a Howler by dinnertime telling the whole school how I've been disowned."

The owl still stared at him in silence. Then finally, with an exasperated look, she lifted her leg out as if he had a letter to tie onto it.

Sirius sat up so quickly his head swam for a moment.

"A letter!" he exclaimed. At grumbling coming from somewhere behind him, he remembered his roommates and lowered his voice. "A letter, that's it!" he repeated, quieter this time. "You're such a smart girl, Aquilina!"

His cousins couldn't send letters until the morning, because owls couldn't make it into the Slytherin dorms. Sirius, however, could send an owl right now. It would get to his parents before his cousins' owls could, and hopefully if Sirius explained how sorry he was and how he hadn't wanted to be in Gryffindor at all, his parents wouldn't disown him. Sirius wouldn't go so far as to hope they would understand, as he knew that they would still be shocked and bitterly disappointed, but maybe they would at least let him stay in the family.

_Dear Dad and Mum, _

_I don't know how to tell you this, so I guess I just have to come out and say it. I got sorted into Gryffindor. _

_I know it's a shock. You can't be more shocked than I am. I promise I didn't want to! I told the hat that I wanted Slytherin, I swear I did! It said that I would do well in either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, and I told it my whole family has been in Slytherin, and it told me that I don't think the way that Slytherins do! And then it put me in Gryffindor before I could say anything else!_

_Please don't be too angry with me. Andromeda and Narcissa will probably send you letters a few hours after you get this one, but I wanted to tell you first so that I could explain it. Maybe I could transfer schools, if that would make you less disappointed?_

_Love,_

_Sirius_

He didn't know what else he could say. He wanted to explain more, but he didn't really know how it had happened himself other than what he'd already said. He wanted to ask for more reassurances that his parents would not disown him, but he didn't want to say it outright like that just in case his parents didn't think of it and he accidentally put the idea into their heads.

Heaving a great sigh, he tied the letter to his familiar's leg and sent her on her way.

Deciding that it would be far too much trouble—and probably too noisy—to dig through his trunk to get his pajamas out, Sirius stripped down to his underwear at the edge of his bed. He nearly teared up when he was removing his tie and found the Slytherin tiepin there. He stared at it for a while, the emerald eye taunting him in the darkness, before he sighed again and laid it gently on his table.

Then he pulled back the bedclothes for the first time, as earlier he had just thrown himself on top of them, and found another reminder of the house he was supposed to have been in: the green silk sheets his mother had purchased for him in Diagon Alley. The house-elves must have found them and put them on his bed when they moved his things upstairs. They didn't match his Gryffindor dormitory at all.

With one last glance at the glinting tiepin, Sirius sunk down into the green sheets, yanked his red curtains closed, and buried his head under his pillows.


	3. Trashed and Scattered

**Author's Note:** This took about a week longer than I expected. However, part of the reason is that I ended up writing several scenes that I have decided will actually go better in the next chapter. The result is that I already have a good portion of Chapter Four written. So enjoy this one and hopefully the next one won't take quite as long!

* * *

The morning post arrived with the usual chaos of flapping wings and spilt pumpkin juice, but the owls avoided Sirius's end of the Gryffindor table just like all of the students did. He looked down the table to watch James Potter open his large box. Sirius knew from experience that it was a care package full of all sorts of sweets and homemade baked goods. It was the third such delivery that James had received—one for each week they'd been at school—and everyone had expected that another would come this Monday, too.

Not that Sirius would be allowed to have any of the treats. James never offered him any, even though he often ate them in front of him and offered Remus and Peter some. Just like he wasn't sitting with James but Remus and Peter were sitting with the other boy, even though this left Sirius set slightly apart and alone at the end of the Gryffindor table. Not that Sirius could really blame them; if their situations had been reversed, he wasn't sure that he would have willingly become a social pariah just to be nice to someone that everyone else hated.

Even his own family hadn't written him at all in the weeks since school had begun. His cousins and Evan had been avoiding him. The first week of classes he had tried to sit with Evan in double Potions with the Slytherins, but Evan had avoided him and sat next to Will Avery instead. Sirius had ended up sitting alone, because there was an odd number of students in the class. Sirius sat alone in every class except Herbology, in fact, because there was an odd number of Gryffindor first years—the four boys in his dorm plus three girls—so he had to sit alone when they had classes alone. It was pure luck that they shared Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, whose seven first years brought the class up to an even number, which meant that one unlucky person couldn't avoid sitting next to him.

After the mail had been delivered and various treats and bits of bacon had been retrieved, the owls all flew back out the way they had come. Sirius sighed and rose from the table. It was clear that another day had passed without any response from his family, and there was no reason to stick around the Great Hall watching everyone else talk to their friends. The only reason he even attended breakfast was in case he got mail.

Shouldering his bag, he trudged out through the entrance hall and the front doors to make his way around the castle to Herbology.

He had several minutes alone to work on his homework before class actually began. He silently thanked his father for presenting him with a book bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm and a Feather-Light Charm so he could carry all of his things around with him all the time. Since no one was really talking to him, he had nothing better to do than schoolwork and was pretty far ahead. By the time other students started trickling into the greenhouse, he had managed to finish the Charms essay they had been assigned in class the previous Thursday and was reading ahead in his Transfigurations textbook.

Class went as it had for the past two weeks. Sirius kept quiet and diligently took notes, and Janice Edgecomb sat close enough to him that when he turned to answer one of her whispered questions he got a face full of her curly hair. Janice was one of the only people who wasn't avoiding him. If he'd had a mind to complain about it, the alternative of being completely alone had made him rethink that idea before he'd actually said anything unfortunate to her. He would rather have her over-the-top enthusiasm and lack of respect for personal space than no friends at all.

After class he walked slightly apart from his classmates as they all chattered together about things in which he had no part. He always headed straight to their next class and therefore spent the morning break in an empty classroom doing homework or reading ahead. During the lunch hour he would gather whatever food he could carry in his hands and immediately leave to go sit in the next empty classroom so he wouldn't have to watch everyone else carry on around him as if he wasn't there. He spent his remaining free hours in the library. He preferred the library to being ignored in the Gryffindor common room or, worse, antagonized by Potter.

That night he returned to the common room just as the clock signaled that it was time for the first years' curfew. He was met just inside the portrait by a sixth-year prefect who was apparently on her way out.

"Black!" she exclaimed, coming up short just before they collided. "You're cutting it really close tonight."

Sirius shrugged, and she pinned him with an annoyed look.

"Well," she said at last, "you had better be careful. I would hate to have to take points from my own house just because you think you have better things to do than spend your evenings in your own common room."

Sirius nodded and pushed past her. He set his sights on the stairs that led to the boys' dormitories, intent on going to his room so he could try and write another letter to his parents. A raised voice he could have recognized anywhere cut across the room.

"Black doesn't have anything better to do! He just thinks he's too good to spend time with the rest of us!"

The usual buzz of conversation suddenly became hushed as everyone heard Potter's words and turned to see what was happening. Sirius refused to stop. He held his head high and kept his gaze straight on the staircase as he continued his trek towards his room.

But Potter wasn't content to just let him go. "You see!" Sirius could hear him declare to the other Gryffindors. "He was bragging on the train about how rich his family is and everything, and we all know the Blacks are the worst sort!"

"It's true," chimed in a female voice. "Mrs. Black attacked my friend on the train, and Black carried on bullying him after we left the station."

The level of volume in the common room rose suddenly as people varyingly asked James and Lily for details, commented on Sirius, or returned to their previous conversations.

Sirius maintained his dignified gait up the stairs until he rounded the first corner and knew that he was well out of sight of the common room. Then he took off at a run the rest of the way, pausing his flight only long enough to make sure he didn't slam the bedroom door loud enough for anyone to hear it. He leaned back against the wood and closed his eyes. His heart seemed to be pounding hard enough that he could feel it throughout his entire body, and the thundering in his ears drowned out any lingering noise from the common room that he might have still been able to hear from all the way upstairs. He felt the sting of tears but refused to let James Potter make him cry.

Aquilina cooed at him from across the room, and he looked up to see her staring at him from on top of one of his bedposts. He hoped her expression was concern and not something worse, like pity. _Blacks don't need to be pitied_, he thought.

"I can't believe him!" he yelled, causing the owl to hoot in surprise. "I never bragged about my family!"

_Blacks don't need to brag_, he remembered another of his lessons.

"And Evans!" He punched the bedpost in frustration, causing Aquilina to ruffle her feathers in indignation as her perch shook. "That bint knows that I apologized and that Snivellus refused to accept it!"

_Blacks don't need to apologize_. The thought came to him automatically, another of the old lessons that he'd been taught by his parents and grandparents.

And suddenly Sirius was stopped in his tracks by the revelation.

He had been trying to fit in by playing by everyone else's rules. His mother had reminded him before she left him on the train that he shouldn't make friends with a boy with a Muggle father, but he had tried anyway. He had even _apologized_ to Snape for his mother's reaction. He had tried to forge a friendship with Potter even after he knew about the other boy's disdain for Slytherin, and therefore for Sirius's entire family. It really came as no surprise that now James had shown his true colors. He had tried to fit in with all of the other Gryffindors but had been met with ridicule and distrust. It wasn't very surprising at all given that he wasn't really a Gryffindor. Oh, sure, the Sorting Hat had decided that his personality was more suited to Gryffindor than to Slytherin, but surely these things ran far deeper than what a hat could possibly know.

Sirius was a Black, first and foremost.

In a sudden flurry of movement, Sirius leapt across his bed and grabbed the quill that was resting on his nightstand. He had been composing another letter to his parents to apologize again for his unfortunate sorting and to beg them for forgiveness, but with his newfound clarity he knew that was the wrong thing to do. He tossed the crumpled parchment aside and started on a new piece.

* * *

The rest of that week and the next proceeded much differently than the ones that had gone before. Sirius refused to be chased off by Potter and the rest of the Gryffindors. He confidently placed himself right in the middle of their lives. He sat in the middle of the Gryffindor table, which at first produced startled looks and stilted conversations from those around him, but he refused to back down and doggedly inserted himself into whatever they were talking about. He stayed with the rest of the students during breaks, and he brazenly sat right in the middle of the common room instead of hiding in the library. Although Potter and Evans never spoke to him except to insult him, and Lupin stopped trying to talk to him after the first time he was nastily set down by Potter for talking to "scum" like Sirius, Pettigrew and the other Gryffindor girls in his year warmed up to him much more quickly than Sirius had imagined. By the end of their fourth week, Sirius felt like he actually had friends in his house.

Peter was a bit sycophantic for Sirius's tastes, but the advantages of befriending him far outweighed the disadvantages. First of all, it drove Potter absolutely up the wall that one of his friends had abandoned him in favor of Sirius. More importantly, he was pretty sure that Peter would do absolutely anything Sirius wanted him to, which made Sirius quite forgiving of the fact that the other boy only chose him over Potter because Sirius gave him more correct answers on their homework, had more spending money and nicer toys, and had mentioned that over Christmas break he would be attending the Quidditch league championship in his grandfather's private box. Puddlemere United were expected to make it to the league final, and Sirius knew that Peter hoped to be invited to attend the game since they were his favorite team.

Currently he was watching as Peter unsuccessfully tried to make a quill move across the space on the table that the blond had created by shoving his dishes out of the way.

"You're not doing the right wand movements," Sirius informed the other boy as he helped himself to another serving of sausage.

Peter tried again without success.

He let out a frustrated sigh. "Last night you told me the problem is I'm not saying it right! Now you're saying the problem is I'm not moving my wand right!"

"Yeah," Sirius replied, "that's because now you're trying so hard to say it correctly that you're not paying enough attention to your wand movements."

Peter's next attempt caused the quill to shake for a moment but was ultimately unsuccessful.

"If I can't do this today, Flitwick'll assign me another essay!" Peter cried, his frustration seeming to turn to panic as the food in the serving platters suddenly disappeared and all of the students began rising to walk to class.

Although Peter was quite good at Potions and Transfiguration, he was absolutely abysmal at Charms. Sirius had taken to helping him in Charms, and in return Peter would help him with Potions whenever Sirius was simply too bored with the subject to bother doing the readings for himself.

Sirius shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth and took an enormous swig of his pumpkin juice to wash it down.

"Watch," he said when he was finished, taking pity on his friend and pulling out his own wand. "It's easier if at first you match up the syllables with the wand movements."

He demonstrated once using a measured pace and slow wand movements, and Peter watched him avidly. Then he repeated the charm, this time at a normal pace, and directed the feather back in front of Peter.

"Pronunciation and wand movement are more important with charms than other things. If you practice getting them both right at the same time, soon enough you'll be able to do both parts together without thinking about it," Sirius reminded his friend.

He tilted his head back to get the last bit of juice in his goblet, but he watched out of the corner of his eye as Peter tried a few more times. Finally his friend succeeded at performing the charm, and he let out a whoop of triumph as the quill crashed into Sirius's now-empty plate.

By then the Great Hall was almost entirely empty, and the two other Gryffindor girls in their year, Emmeline Vance and Mary MacDonald, were waving at them from the end of the table by the doors. Sirius and Peter hurriedly gathered their things and rushed up the table to meet the girls. The two had been very friendly with Sirius since he had lent them his booklist for a Transfiguration essay they'd had to write. It just included the titles and a short note about what was helpful in each book, but Emmeline had thanked him profusely and insisted that they never would have found the information in half of them without his help. (There was, Sirius had been surprised to learn, quite an absence of libraries in most peoples' homes, and therefore a lot of other students' essays weren't very well researched because they were still learning how Madam Pince's indexing system worked.)

Mary was the shyer of the two girls, but even she had been outspoken in her defense of Sirius when, two days later as they were comparing their finished essays, Potter had demanded to know why they were hanging around with a Dark wizard.

Mary held out a napkin to Peter as the two approached. "Here," she said, "I nabbed you some toast before the food disappeared. I saw that you didn't eat anything."

Peter took the small bundle from her. "Thanks! I would have been absolutely dying by lunchtime."

Sirius figured that it probably wouldn't be a very good idea to make a joke about Peter not looking like he'd suffer too much from missing a meal.

The four of them rushed through the castle towards the Charms classroom, their usual trudging pace sped up to nearly a run. They tumbled over the threshold just as the bell was chiming to announce the start of class, and Professor Flitwick looked up at them from his place perched precariously on a stack of books.

"Almost late!" he squeaked, though there was nothing chastising about either his tone or his expression. "Go on, take your seats! We've got a lot to go over today!"

"Sorry, Professor," said Peter as he slid into his seat next to Sirius. "Sirius was helping me with my Moving Charm."

Professor Flitwick nodded cheerily. "And did you finally accomplish it?"

Peter said that he had and demonstrated. His wand movements and incanting were still slow and methodical in the way that Sirius had demonstrated at the breakfast table a few minutes earlier. Though his style was far from elegant, he did manage to make his feather move across the desk.

"Excellent, Mr. Pettigrew!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping his hands. "I see that Mr. Black has taught you to be more careful with your casting. You just want a bit more practice!" He turned his attention to Sirius. "Ten points to Gryffindor for helping a fellow student!"

Potter was glaring at Sirius from across the aisle, though Sirius couldn't have said whether the git was more upset that he was getting praise in general or that he was getting praise for helping Peter specifically. He grinned triumphantly and gave Potter a raised eyebrow, but his voice was everything humble when he spoke to their professor.

"Thank you, Professor, but it was nothing, really."

The rest of the day went by just as well. Sirius was awarded more points in Transfiguration for successfully transfiguring a beetle into a button on his first try, which caused both James and Evans to seethe even more than they already were. Furthermore, it seemed that Evans had taken his place as the house pariah. In classes Peter and Sirius were sitting together, Emmeline and Mary were sitting together, and Potter and Lupin were sitting together, which left Evans as the lone one out where Sirius had been in that position earlier. Despite their agreement over how horrible Sirius was, Evans seemed to hate Potter just as much as she hated Sirius, which meant that she couldn't sit with him and Lupin during meals or breaks. Emmeline and Mary had taken a decided dislike to the other girl both because she had badmouthed Sirius to them and because she had defended Snivellus after he'd insulted Mary's family.

It wasn't that Sirius disagreed about Mary being a Mudblood. He just wasn't stupid enough to say so out loud or to defend someone who had, not when he was just making headway in Gryffindor house. He supposed that Evans, being a Mudblood herself, didn't know how insulting it was to call someone that, or else she wouldn't have tried to defend her friend. For that matter, maybe she wouldn't even be friends with someone who would say it, if she knew what it meant.

Either way, Evans's behavior had given Sirius an opportunity to prove that he wasn't going to treat anyone horribly just because he was a Black and a pure-blood (and he wasn't about to admit that he privately thought they would have deserved to be treated horribly). That had sent Mary straight into Sirius's company. Peter, a Half-blood, had been almost as insulted as she had, so the incident had cemented his bond with Sirius even more. Even though Emmeline was a pure-blood, she was a Gryffindor through and through, and Sirius had managed to use the incident to win respect from her, too.

Yes, Sirius was exceedingly pleased with the results of his efforts.

The next morning at breakfast, an enormous eagle owl landed in front of Sirius, sending eggs flying off of his plate and all over the table.

Though he was too delighted to see the owl to be angry for real, Sirius exclaimed, "You did that on purpose so I would have to give you those!"

The owl answered his accusation with an affronted hoot and turned her head away as if she had too much dignity to even acknowledge his presence. He knew she was joking when she held out her foot for him to take the letter despite her still-turned face.

"Thank you, Lyra," Sirius said as he took the letter. "You can have whatever you want, you know." He was so happy that he would have put in a special request down to the kitchens for her if she'd been able to ask him. At that, she quickly dropped any pretense of anger and turned around so she could start swooping her head down around and into his plate, eating her fill.

"Look, Black finally got an owl!" crowed Potter. "We thought your family was glad to be rid of you!"

A few of the other students laughed. Sirius was glad to see that most of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws didn't laugh. He was sure they all would have only a couple of weeks before. Lupin wasn't around to back up Potter (Apparently he had taken ill overnight.), but the few scattered laughs belonged to older students who were particularly friendly with Potter. Sirius ignored it both because he felt that he was too good to respond and because he was too excited to read his letter anyway.

_Sirius,_

_You will have to forgive me for taking so long to write back. Your father and I are in Germany on business. Even superior owls like your Aquilina and my Lyra will take a few days to make such a long trip._

_I can't say that I was not disappointed to learn that you had been sorted anywhere except Slytherin, particularly into Gryffindor, but I suppose that in retrospect it isn't such a surprise. You have always had a different temperament from most of the family. I'm sure you recall that the two of us have had discussions about this before. _

Indeed, Sirius did remember several such conversations. He remembered that most recently, just before he'd gone to Diagon Alley to purchase his school supplies, his grandfather had told him that he would probably need a different type of wand than his father's or grandfather's because of their different personalities.

_You are entirely correct that being a Black transcends differences in personality, preferences, or house. Although let's do hope that you are just an anomaly and not the start of a trend. (Sometimes your brother seems like more of a Hufflepuff than anything. Don't tell him or your mother that I said that.)_

Sirius laughed aloud, drawing a few curious glances from all around, but he was very careful not to let anyone on either side of him see the letter, particularly Peter. He had asked his grandfather some very sensitive questions and had glanced ahead far enough to see that he had been answered. It would not be good if anyone else read the rest of the letter.

_Your plan to ingratiate yourself with the other Gryffindors is sound. It's true that most of them don't have the pure and noble blood that you do, and even those that are pure have mostly forgotten how to behave properly. (I would have very strong words with my cousin about her son's treatment of you, but I think my interference would make his treatment of you worse.) _

Sirius was glad that his grandfather hadn't said anything to Dorea Potter, because James would have just used that to humiliate him. He hadn't told his grandfather about Potter so that the older man would fight his battles for him.

_You are worth a hundred of each of those people. However, we must adapt to our environments. I certainly would not have gotten as far as I have in politics if I had been too open about my disgust for those of lesser blood. My excellent grandfather, Phineas Nigellus, would never have become the headmaster of Hogwarts had he been too open about his opinions, and he was born nearly a century ago. You see the difference in status that I have achieved compared to your Grandfather Pollux, who is so open about his opinions, and you have been taught the history of your family and surely remember the difference in status between Phineas Nigellus and his sister, my Great Aunt Elladora, who proposed to make Muggle-hunting legal. _

_Become friends with them because you must. You are in Gryffindor and must make the best of it, and it would simply not do for a Black to be unpopular or a source of ridicule. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you can even teach the Mudbloods how to behave in our world and correct some of the Half-bloods' bad habits. But hear me now: Never stoop to their level, Sirius. Always remember that you are better than them. You are pure. You are more magical, more powerful, and more worthy than any of them can comprehend. _

_I _will_ be having words with my daughter-in-law about her treatment of you. I was appalled when you told me that in her husband's and my absence she has not been returning your letters. You can be sure that if your father was home she would not have been allowed to carry on this way. She clearly has more to learn about being a Black than you do at your young age. I blame her father._

Sirius thought that it was rather more like if _Grandfather_ had been home he could have influenced his mother's behavior. Sirius's father most often got his way with his wife on such big issues by reminding her of what Arcturus's reaction would be. He wasn't sure that he would be able to forgive his mother for only writing to him because she had been forced to do it, though.

_Speaking of him, I will also be having words with that fool Pollux about his grandchildren's behavior. You will let me know if they make amends to you for withdrawing their support since your sorting, and if they do not I will simply have to have a word with them myself over the holidays. _

_How are your studies going? Write back and tell me how you're getting on both with classes and with this little project we've discussed._

Toujours Pur,

_Grandfather_

Sirius folded his letter and put it inside his book bag to make sure that no one else could read it. He was glad that his grandfather agreed with his plan to make friends in his house, because he wasn't sure that he could have spent the next seven years as a social outcast. He could barely stand it for a couple of weeks!

He was also glad to think that maybe his cousins would be willing to talk with him after they got a good talking to about it. He might not be able to easily forgive and forget how they had ignored him, but they were family. Besides, he wouldn't turn down the opportunity to get to know the other Slytherins, and he particularly remembered that Bellatrix had told him to get to know Lucius Malfoy.

"Who was your letter from?" Mary's voice snapped him out of his thoughts and back into the present.

He looked up to see his friends watching him.

He replied, "My grandfather. He was—"

"Probably telling you how disappointed he is that you aren't a snake!" cut in James Potter from his place a few seats away. "Hasn't your family disowned you yet?"

Before Sirius could reply, Mary scoffed, "Honestly, Potter, how stupid! Why would he have been laughing if his letter was anything bad?"

"He was just reminding me of some old family stories," Sirius said. "He had some things to say about your mother, Potter."

The way he said it had the intended implication, and Potter's face went bright red all the way to the tips of his ears. He sputtered in indignation, and Peter burst out laughing at Sirius's side.

A boy, whom Sirius recognized as the one Potter had sat beside during the opening feast, leaned around the others at the table to ask, "Why would your grandfather tell family stories about Mrs. Potter?"

"Don't you know?" Sirius asked, composing his face into a perfect mask of innocent surprise even as he was cheering inside at the perfect opportunity to discredit Potter's words about him in front of the entire house. "Mrs. Potter is a Black. She's my great aunt, actually, and Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa's, too. You know, my cousins from Slytherin?"

"That's right," piped up Emmeline, obviously having caught onto his game, "you're the first Black not to have been sorted into Slytherin. Wouldn't that mean…" She trailed off suggestively, and Sirius watched as James Potter's face achieved the color purple.

Sirius nodded along. "That Dorea Potter was a Slytherin? Yes, it would." He had to fight to maintain his mask. "Say, Potter, since your mother was both a Black _and_ a Slytherin, you must think she's ten times worse than me!"

The reaction at the table was mixed; Sirius's friends were laughing as if it was the most hilarious thing they had ever heard, but everyone else seemed torn between confusion and discomfort more than laughter. There were a few scattered chuckles, but they were the kind of reluctant chuckles that only come from people who know that it isn't entirely appropriate to find something funny.

Sirius stared across the table directly into the furious eyes of James Potter and felt no remorse. _If it were the other way around, none of them would have had any problem laughing at _me_, _he thought.

Potter got up and stormed out of the Great Hall alone, as his loyal sidekick wasn't around to support him today, and Sirius watched in satisfaction.

"_Merlin_!" Emmeline broke into his consciousness and he turned to look at her directly across the table from him. "I thought no one would ever put that tosser in his place!"

From beside him, Peter asked, "Did your grandpa really say anything about his mum?"

"Yeah." Sirius barked out a laugh. "I mean, he didn't really tell me any story about her, but I knew that would set Potter off."

Peter snorted in laughter. Sirius found it distasteful, but he was determined not to let anything ruin his day since it was going so well for once.

Even double Potions with the Slytherins wasn't enough to dampen his good mood, though Potions was his least favorite class and he had to put up with being in the same room with two more people he'd rather not have anything to do with. Snivellus seemed to hate him more than ever, and Sirius supposed that the git must blame him for his little girlfriend's new position as a social outcast in Gryffindor. Not that Snape did much better in Slytherin, from what Sirius could tell. Sirius stubbornly thought to himself that really everyone's suffering was Snivellus's fault. If Snivellus had just accepted his apology on the train, they would all be friends and no one would have had a hard time, not even Sirius after he'd been sorted into Gryffindor.

The other person he would rather not see was Evan. He had tried to think of the olive-skinned boy as Rosier instead of as Evan, but even in the privacy of his own mind he had to admit to himself that he missed his friend and couldn't think of him so unfamiliarly. But if Evan was determined to abandon him at the drop of a hat—Sirius chuckled to himself at the literalism of that saying in his case, drawing a curious look from Peter, who was sitting beside him—then he was determined not to have anything to do with his friend…. Former friend.

Lunch was immediately after Potions, and after three straight hours of class everyone was more than happy to exchange the dungeons for the Great Hall, even the Slytherins. Sirius noted with grim satisfaction that Potter hadn't shown up for lunch. He allowed himself to relax and let his guard down, and he was just in the middle of laughing with his friends at a silly story of Mary's when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned in his seat, halfway expecting it to be Potter or Lupin, but stopped short at the grinning face only a few inches above his own.

"Er—Hello, Janice."

"Hi!" She beamed at him. "Did Slughorn assign you the essay on when potions are better than spells?"

Actually the assignment was two feet on the pros and cons of using both potions and spells, including examples of when potions would be better and when spells would be better. The girl was in Ravenclaw, so surely she knew that.

Sirius decided to answer with a simple, "Yes."

Her wild curls bounced around her head as she nodded enthusiastically. "Brilliant! Do you want to work on it together?"

Sirius wasn't really accustomed to working with anyone on his written assignments. After he had given that advice to Mary and Emmeline, they had talked once or twice about ideas they had for some of their homework, but they had never actually gone to the library or worked on the assignments together. But, he reflected, Janice had been nice to him since that first day at Hogwarts, and spending more time with her would be a good way to prove even more to everyone that he didn't think he was better than everyone other than the Slytherins. Plus she was a smart girl (at least from what he had seen in their one class together and what he assumed from her house), and they worked well together as partners in Herbology.

"Sure, I guess," he ended up saying. "We can each find the books we want to use over the weekend then meet up before dinner on Monday."

A look of disappointment passed over her face, marring her pleased expression for just a moment before she smiled at him again.

"Oh, okay, that sounds fine. We can meet outside the library right after class."

Sirius agreed and she turned to make the brief journey back up the Ravenclaw table to where a group of first and second-year girls sat giggling and apparently watching them. Sirius turned back to his own friends, and his slight confusion must have shown on his face, because Emmeline and Mary exchanged a look and promptly burst into their own fit of giggles.

Peter looked between them in just as much bafflement as Sirius. "What's funny?" he demanded.

But that just increased the girls' laughter even more.

Sirius was torn between being very angry that they were apparently laughing at him and just putting the entire thing out of his mind.

"Girls!" Peter said, his tone conveying just how barmy he thought they were. He turned towards Sirius and rolled his eyes, and Sirius decided that he concurred.

He turned to face Peter more fully, intent on ignoring the girls, and said, "Do you want to spend this afternoon down by the lake? I was hoping we could catch a glimpse of the Giant Squid before it gets too cold out."

His friend agreed enthusiastically with his plan. Sirius did his best to ignore the fact that he had expressed his agreement while his mouth was full of carrots.

* * *

The following Monday in Herbology, Janice seemed even more excitable than usual. Sirius had considered changing their seating arrangements now that he and Peter were friends (The poor guy was still stuck sitting next to Evans.), but he hadn't wanted to offend Janice. If nothing else, she had been friendly with him all along, and she hadn't _really_ done anything wrong.

When Sirius met her in front of the library later that afternoon, she grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the back corner of the cavernous room. It was the Muggle Studies section from what he could tell by the titles on the shelves, and he questioned aloud why they didn't just sit in the Potions section.

"Don't be silly," replied Janice. "No one ever comes back here."

Sirius supposed that being alone did have its merits. They could talk freely without disturbing anyone else in the library, and no one else would disturb them. Plus they seemed to be out of the hearing range of Madam Pince.

"All right. Well, did you find any good books?"

He moved to sit at the lone table between the stacks, tossing his book bag on top of it as he went. He missed the look of exasperation that crossed over the girl's face. By the time she joined him at the table, he had already pulled out all of the books he had found to help with their essays.

The rest of their afternoon in the library was uneventful other than making what Sirius considered an inadequate amount of headway on their essays. Janice seemed totally distracted and like she was doing her best to distract him in turn. Sirius had asked her several times if she was feeling okay or if she would rather work on their homework another time, but she had denied that anything was wrong and had refused to leave the library.

Sirius looked at the parchment of notes he had managed to make despite the unproductiveness of their study session. "We should probably try and find some books on healing," he thought aloud. "All of the other information we have is fine, but our essays would be stronger if we had specific examples of when healing potions work more effectively than healing spells that do the same thing."

Janice sighed, and Sirius turned towards her, his annoyance finally breaking through. Whatever he had been about to say was abruptly cut off when Andromeda strolled into the aisle containing their table.

"Sirius!" She looked just as surprised as he felt. "What are you doing here?"

Sirius thought it was pretty obvious. "We're working on an essay. What are _you_ doing here?"

She didn't have a book bag or any papers with her, so he didn't think she could be working on homework like Janice and he were. She was silent for several long moments, staring between him and his companion with a skeptical look on her face. Finally, she offered him a forced smile.

"The same," she said. Sirius briefly thought of asking why she didn't have any of her materials with her if that was true, but before he could, she continued, "Bella sent me an owl yesterday. She said that your grandfather is very angry at all of us."

Sirius didn't know what to say. He didn't want to assume that she felt bad about the way she had avoided him, and anyway he wasn't sure that he wanted to forgive that easily even if she did. So he stayed silent and stared at her. He was aware of Janice looking apprehensively between the two of them.

"Look, Sirius, I'm really sorry about—"

"Andy!" She was cut off by a male voice, and soon enough Sirius could see the source coming around the corner of the stacks.

It was an older boy with sandy blond hair. Sirius could see that he was about the same height as Andromeda, when he stopped next to her. He had a broad smile on his face, though he seemed to Sirius to be a jovial type of person in general, one who probably wouldn't frown too often.

An expression that Sirius couldn't quite read flitted across his cousin's face. "We'd better find another table," she said to the boy. She turned back to Sirius and said, "I'll talk to you later, Siri."

The tone of her voice made the statement seem almost like a question. Sirius studied her face for a moment and took in the earnest expression. Finally, he gave a brief nod.

"You don't have to leave," he said, actually quite relieved at the excuse she had unwittingly offered him. "We've done as much as we can for now anyway."

Janice looked like she might argue, but Sirius had already started packing his things back into his bag, so she didn't really have any choice except to follow his lead. Andromeda gave him a little smile as he passed by her on his way out of the stacks, and he returned it halfheartedly. He hadn't forgiven her yet just because she had been nice to him once, when she hadn't even sought him out on purpose.

Janice was uncharacteristically silent as they walked side by side out of the library, and when they reached the point where they had to separate, Sirius felt that he should say something.

"I'm sorry my cousin interrupted us," he said, though he wasn't really sorry at all, "but at least we made good progress." He didn't really believe they'd made as much progress together as he could have made alone, but he thought he would be nice to her.

"Yeah, I guess." She didn't seem like she really thought so at all, and Sirius was extremely confused. She had asked him to work on their essays together, but then she had been distracted the entire time and had hindered his progress. Now she was the one acting as if _she_ was disappointed?

_Girls_, he thought to himself. _They make no sense!_

Maybe if he actually did talk to Andromeda again, he would ask her about it. Although he had never been particularly close to her, not as close as he had been to Bellatrix. Maybe if Andy was talking to him, then Bella wouldn't mind talking to him either, and he could ask her about it over the Christmas holiday.

Sirius decided not to spend too much time worrying about it for the moment. He silently took Janice's bag off his shoulder, where he had been carrying it, and extended his arm out for her to take it back. He must have done something right, because suddenly her wide grin was back.

"Thank you, Sirius," she said. Then she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and before he could react she had disappeared through the door that he could only assume led in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower.

_Girls!_ Sirius thought again.

* * *

The next few weeks passed by relatively peacefully. Of course Sirius had found that having friends meant that he had social obligations, and having social obligations meant that his life was a lot more hectic than it had been during his first few weeks of school. He was no longer far ahead in his schoolwork. There simply wasn't a lot of time to get things done when he was constantly playing wizard chess with Mary, listening to Quidditch games on the Wizarding Wireless Network with Peter and Emmeline, and studying with Janice. Well, if what he and Janice did could actually be called studying, which Sirius was quite sure it couldn't since they were never as productive as if he had been by himself.

Unfortunately, Potter, Evans, and Snivellus were still students at Hogwarts, and that meant Sirius's life was not entirely peaceful. Although Evans mostly avoided him and the worst he could expect from her was nasty looks, her little boyfriend had taken a liking to insulting Sirius whenever he could. Sirius was still not entirely used to being an object of scorn to anyone. His entire life he had been respected by nearly everyone he met, which he supposed had something to do with only willingly associating with other pure-bloods.

The altercations with Snivellus were particularly frustrating to him, because he couldn't say most of what he wanted to say in return. He couldn't exactly call the other boy out on his blood status or his obvious poverty, because statements like that would upset his new friends.

This whole making friends with the Gryffindors thing was harder than he'd thought it would be.

Potter, though, was on another level entirely. Ever since the humiliation over breakfast several weeks ago, he had been on the warpath. Sirius could admit, if only in the privacy of his own mind, that antagonizing Potter in front of the whole house had been a bit shortsighted on his part. He supposed this really made him a rash Gryffindor after all.

It had started a few days after the Breakfast Incident, as the girls had started calling it. Potter had hit him with a tripping jinx as they were all walking in the large crowd heading to the Gryffindor and Slytherin Quidditch match. He had fallen face-first into the slushy mixture of snow and mud that had been trampled by hundreds of feet, and nearly everyone around him had laughed. Sirius had retaliated by using the rest of his itching powder on every piece of fabric Potter owned. They had gone back and forth for weeks now. But the tipping point for Sirius didn't come until the beginning of November.

He had just spent another frustrating hour with Janice in the library, though perhaps a bit more productive than usual since she was actually having trouble in Transfigurations and sincerely wanted his help. Transfigurations was by far his best and favorite class. Still, when they had separated to go to their common rooms, she had seemed to be just as frustrated with him as she usually was, and he had yet to figure out the reason. He was still pondering what the problem might be as he gave the password to the Fat Lady, and he had decided that maybe he should ask Emmeline and Mary since they were girls.

He wasn't even thinking about Potter when he entered the common room, but when he walked by the area where Potter and his friends were sitting they all laughed loud enough to catch his attention.

"Black! Just who we've been waiting for!" Potter cried. He leapt from his seat and approached, and Sirius watched warily.

"Really?" he asked, allowing a tone of boredom to seep into voice.

Potter stopped a few feet from him, Lupin following behind him, and gave him a grin that set Sirius immediately on edge. "We were just admiring your jewelry," the other boy informed him.

Sirius was confused for moment and was sure that Potter was just trying to set him up for something stupid. He was determined not to fall for anything, so he was sure to keep the disinterested mask on his face. Then Potter held up his hand and Sirius saw what he was holding. Hot, blinding rage bubbled up inside of him, and he knew that it showed on his face because Lupin took a step back and shot a worried glance at his friend.

"Give it back," he growled.

Potter paused for a moment, perhaps because of the look on Sirius's face or the tone of his voice, but he quickly recovered. "I don't think so," he said. "No Gryffindor should have it anyway!"

"Give it back!" Sirius repeated, his voice rising this time.

They were drawing an audience now. People all over the common room were abandoning their own pursuits to see what was happening between the two first years, and Sirius's friends were moving across the room to join him.

"You put on a good show, but if you were a real Gryffindor you wouldn't want this," Potter insisted. "Prove that you aren't a Dark wizard! Throw this piece of trash into the fire!"

Sirius's fury bubbled over, and he couldn't contain it anymore. "IT DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING!" he roared. "IT'S JUST A TIEPIN!"

"IT'S SLYTHERIN!" Potter yelled back. "IT'S PROBABLY GOT ALL KINDS OF CURSES ON IT!"

"IT WAS A GIFT FROM MY GRANDFATHER!"

Potter's face was red now, but Sirius knew that his own was probably stark white, drained of any color.

"James," came a voice from somewhere nearby, "just give it back!"

Potter gestured towards the fireplace, and Sirius leapt forward out of instinct to stop him from throwing the silver tiepin into the flames. His hand collided with Potter's arm, and Potter's other arm came up between them to shove him away. Sirius's fist had collided with the other boy's face before he even realized that he'd moved his other arm. They struggled for several more seconds until James landed a blow on Sirius's nose. He heard a crunching sound and felt hot blood spurt down his face, but he was too enraged to feel the pain.

He staggered back a step and whipped out his wand, the square handle feeling perfectly at home in his hand. The wood seemed to hum in anticipation for what Sirius would do to their enemy.

Potter thrust the tiepin towards Lupin so he could take out his own wand. Sirius watched almost as if he was outside of himself as Lupin let out a yelp and the silver serpent fell to the floor at his feet.

There was a horrible sound as it collided with the stone. It probably wasn't noticeable or significant to anyone else, but to Sirius the sound reverberated in his head as if someone was playing drums in his ears.

"EXPELLIARMUS!" he screamed.

Potter flew backwards into Lupin, and the two of them stumbled and fell. Sirius was too intent on his tiepin to either notice how powerful his spell had been or to pay attention to what happened afterwards. Potter's wand flew into the wall behind where Sirius had been standing and clattered to the ground, as Sirius was already moving forward even before the spell had fully left his mouth and hadn't even tried to catch it.

He knelt next to the small snake and felt relief course through his body as he scooped it into his hand. His fury at Potter's theft of the tiepin and his relief at having it back were not necessarily tied up in the trinket itself. It wasn't the most expensive thing he owned. Indeed, Sirius was sure that his signet ring was worth many times more. The value to him was emotional; the tiepin was the last thing he'd received before his entire world had turned on its axis, and it was likely the very last thing he would ever receive that would make him feel like he was really the same as the long line of Blacks before him. He was too different now, and his perception of how his family was viewed and how his family viewed _him_ was so altered that he would never feel entirely at peace with himself again, not like he had that morning before his sorting.

His relief was short-lived, for when he turned the serpent over in his hand he realized that it was no longer whole. The emerald eye was gone, no doubt knocked loose by its impact with the stone floor. Sirius stared in disbelief for several long seconds before he fully registered the empty space where the gem used to be. He looked around frantically for a moment, but of course he knew that the chances were almost zero of finding the small emerald among all the crevices of the stonework and the feet of the crowd.

Tears welled up behind his eyes, but Sirius immediately stamped down the urge to cry. There was still pandemonium all around him, and he barely had time to compose his expression before he felt hands on his arm pulling him back to his feet.

"Come on, Black," said the seventh-year prefect. His voice was kind, and Sirius focused on that like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.

They were led to the hospital wing, where Sirius was directed to a bed so Madam Pomfrey could heal his broken nose. His entire world had narrowed down to the kind boy, who was now sitting next to him on the bed, and the empty eye socket of his serpent, so he didn't hear what kind of damage he'd caused to Potter.

Soon enough, Professor McGonagall swept into the infirmary, her usually stern face set into even grimmer lines than ever, and Sirius couldn't stay in his own small world anymore.

"Never in my time as Head of Gryffindor House," she began, her nostrils flaring in anger, "have I ever witnessed anything as disgraceful as this! Two Gryffindors—two classmates!—_dueling_ in the middle of our common room!"

Sirius had been in trouble with his parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles enough times in his life to know that anything he said now would just make things worse. It was best, in situations like this, to just let the professor rant herself out before he tried to speak up for himself or apologize.

Apparently Potter had never learned that lesson. He looked up at the professor with large, innocent eyes and began, "But Professor—"

"Mr. Potter!" Professor McGonagall spoke over him, just as Sirius had known she would. "Don't take that innocent tone with me! I expected better from _you_ of all people!"

The way she emphasized her formerly good opinion of Potter grated on Sirius's already-frayed nerves in entirely the wrong way. He couldn't help himself. He sneered and asked, "Oh, so you didn't expect better of _me_, did you? Because I should have been in Slytherin or just because I'm a Black?"

He knew that he had made a mistake as soon as the words had left his mouth. If he hadn't already known it himself, the way that the kind prefect rose from the bed as if to put distance between himself and Sirius and the way that the deputy headmistress was staring at him in open astonishment would have clued him in. But he refused to back down now, and whether it was more out of the vestiges of his anger or out of his ever-present pride, he maintained his angry sneer at the professor.

Her voice was carefully controlled when she spoke. "Mr. Black, you are adding disrespect to your already long list of crimes this evening. Instigating a duel—"

"Instigating?" Sirius interrupted incredulously. "I never would have looked at him twice if he hadn't started it!"

"I did not! He cursed me for no reason!" Potter cried.

Sirius turned on him, gray eyes flashing black. "I didn't curse you, you tosser! You're nothing more than a common thief and a liar!"

"QUIET!" yelled Professor McGonagall. The two boys glared menacingly at each other but remained silent. After a few heartbeats, the professor turned to the seventh-year prefect and asked, "Can you shed some light on what happened, Kingsley? Apparently Mr. Abercrombie didn't give me the full story."

Kingsley shook his head. "I'm not surprised, Professor. He only came downstairs from the dorms in time to catch the end of it. I just thought I had better escort them to the hospital wing myself, and he was the only other prefect in the common room I could send to you." McGonagall nodded her understanding, and her senior-most prefect continued, "It's true that Black landed the first blow, but from what I heard, Potter had stolen something of his and was threatening to throw it into the fire."

Potter protested at that, and Professor McGonagall was forced to cut him off again. After several more starts and stops and after she had heard from Kingsley, Sirius, and Potter, everyone was more or less satisfied that McGonagall had his side of the story.

Her face was still set into a frown when she made her pronouncement. "Mr. Potter, taking another student's possessions without permission is never allowed. I don't care what you thought about it," she preempted him as she saw his mouth open to protest. "If you thought Mr. Black's tiepin was dangerous, you should have come to me immediately and not taken the situation upon yourself. You will have detention for the next two Tuesday nights, and perhaps I can come to understand why you think so poorly of your classmate."

Potter looked like he might argue again, but at a stern look from the professor, he let out a miserable, "Yes, Professor."

"Mr. Black, it is never acceptable to instigate physical blows with another student, either through fisticuffs or magic. It does not matter what he's done. Therefore, you will serve detention on the next _three_ Thursday nights."

Sirius's mouth dropped open in pure shock at the unfairness of it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Potter grin triumphantly. No doubt he thought his own two detentions were well worth it in order to get Sirius in even more trouble than himself.

"Furthermore," continued Professor McGonagall, either not noticing or pretending not to notice their reactions, "I am appalled at the complete lack of respect with which you treated me earlier. You will serve a fourth Thursday night detention for that."

Again, he simply couldn't help himself. "I wonder if you would care a bit more if one of Potter's family heirlooms was completely ruined!" His voice cracked on the last word.

"MR. BLACK! You have earned yourself another detention!"

"I DON'T CARE!" Sirius yelled, all of the emotions pouring out of him now. "JUST GO AHEAD AND EXPEL ME! AT LEAST THEN NO ONE COULD ATTACK ME AND MY FAMILY AND GET AWAY WITH IT!"

Kingsley and Potter were watching the scene unfold with looks of wide-eyed disbelief. Professor McGonagall's lips were pursed into a thin, white line. There was absolute silence for several long moments.

Then Professor McGonagall spoke, her voice measured. "You will spend your Thursday nights with me for the rest of the year, Mr. Black. Now, all of you, go back to Gryffindor Tower immediately."

She spun on her heel and marched out of the infirmary, obviously leaving Kingsley to make sure that the two younger boys got back to their common room without killing each other.

The walk was accomplished without another word from any of them.

* * *

It seemed like everyone was still talking about the fight in the common room weeks later. The details had been embellished so many times through the retellings that most of the students who hadn't witnessed it for themselves, and even some who had, seemed to think that there had been a massive duel that had nearly destroyed the Gryffindor common room. Whether someone believed that Potter had soundly defeated Sirius and that Madam Pomfrey had to spend all night healing his face, or whether someone believed that Sirius had single-handedly blown both Potter and Lupin across the tower, depended entirely on who the person thought had been in the right.

Sirius had still been debating whether or not he should tell his parents about the tiepin when the choice had been virtually removed from his hands by the arrival of his father's massive black owl.

_What in Merlin's name are you doing at that school!_ the letter had begun, without any greeting. _I came home from abroad only for your mother to shove into my face a letter from school informing us that you have detention until the end of the year for fighting and disrespectful behavior! You had better write back immediately and tell us exactly what happened. You're lucky your mother is too embarrassed to have sent you a Howler immediately. Love, Father._

Sirius had spent quite a long time wondering whether his father really still loved him or if he had just written that out of habit. His mother still hadn't written him directly.

He had taken the opportunity to write a long letter to his father outlining everything that happened that term, finally ending with the confrontation in the hospital wing. He had added a few lines asking his father to please have the tiepin repaired if he could and had put the snake into the envelope to send along with the letter. Aquilina had been given very specific instructions to wait to deliver the letter until his father was alone, just to make sure that his mother didn't throw it into the fire without reading it like she had done to Snape's mum's letters. Sirius wasn't entirely sure that she would do that with his letters, but he hadn't wanted to take the chance since she was so angry about the detentions on top of his sorting.

He had already served most of his detentions with McGonagall, and although at first he and the professor had been tiptoeing around each other both in class and in his detentions, now he didn't mind going so much. Well, except for the fact that Potter had long since finished his own detentions, and that still tore at Sirius so much that he could barely resist taking out his wand and cursing the other boy whenever he saw him. Other than that, he didn't mind the detentions so much anymore, because sometimes he got to perform Transfigurations tasks, and sometimes he got to watch Professor McGonagall do more advanced work.

Currently he was watching her untransfigure slippers back into rabbits.

"Professor," he ventured to ask, "is it easier to untransfigure something than to transfigure it?"

She looked over at him sternly for a moment, but then seemed to decide that there was no harm in discussing it with him instead of insisting that he continue writing his lines.

"It is easier for most people. It isn't as complex as transfiguring something in the first place, but it isn't nearly as easy as removing the effects of a charm or a jinx," she answered. "You are not transfiguring the object again so that it is in the same general form in which it started. Rather you are removing the effects of the transfiguration so that the object is exactly the same as it was when you began."

"So you don't want a rabbit transfigured into a slipper transfigured into another rabbit. You want the original rabbit back," Sirius confirmed.

"Yes, Mr. Black. Exactly."

Sirius eagerly leaned forward in his seat. "And some people have trouble imagining that they're undoing the transfiguration instead of accidentally imagining that they're just transfiguring it into another rabbit?"

A pleased looked crossed over the professor's face, and her voice was full of enthusiasm when she spoke next. "Were you taught to conceptualize the transfigurations?" Sirius's wariness must have shown on his face, because she made a dismissive gesture and said, "I am not asking to get you into trouble, Mr. Black. I know very well that many wizarding families begin teaching their children before they're old enough for Hogwarts. I just wonder if you chose those words by accident or if you are actually conceptualizing the process."

"I think about what would have to happen to the object for it to turn into what I want it to," replied Sirius, deciding to answer in such a way that he didn't actually admit that anyone had taught him to do that.

"That's very impressive in one so young," said Professor McGonagall. "Most wizards have trouble with Transfiguration because they are only willing the object to look like what they want it to, not thinking through the process the object would have to go through in order to change more fundamentally."

That made sense to Sirius on one level, but he remembered that the professor had told the class on the very first day that they had to think through the process. They would have to imagine that their matches were becoming thinner and pointier, and transforming from wood into metal, in order for their transfigurations from matches to needles to work. He reminded her of this, and then asked, "Since you told us we had to do that, shouldn't everyone know?"

"The problem, Mr. Black, is that they are just thinking about their matches changing from _looking like_ wood to looking like metal," she answered. "They are not really thinking about the more fundamental process of changing the wood _into_ metal."

She watched him process this information without saying another word, though she was staring at him as if she expected him to say something. Sirius recognized the look from his father and grandfather. Finally, after spending several seconds thinking through what she had said, he thought that he understood what she was trying to make him understand.

"If you only think about the things you can see and not the deeper things that you can't see, you'll only manage a—" he searched for a word for a moment "—a surface transformation, not a complete transformation."

Professor McGonagall offered him the first smile he had ever seen on her face. He wasn't sure whether or not it was an improvement over her usually pursed features.

"You can't teach people how to think about the underlying changes, no matter how many times you tell them they must. It is something one either grasps naturally or does not. Now why don't you come over here and see if you can untransfigure these. I see no reason for me to do it as long as I have a perfectly good student in detention."

It turned out that Sirius was pretty good at untransfiguring slippers back into rabbits, after he got the hang of it. He'd had a few unsuccessful attempts, but McGonagall had shown him the kind of patience that a teacher only shows to students she knows will completely get it. And get it sooner rather than later.

He was in a very good mood when he finally got back to the Gryffindor common room, and even Potter and Lupin's presence in their dormitory couldn't dampen his spirits. He ignored them completely and went to sit on the edge of his bed facing Peter, who was sitting in the middle of his. The other boy had one book propped open in his lap and another one closed on the bed beside him so that it could function as a makeshift writing desk. He had a streak of black ink up one side of his face and through his fair hair.

"Having some trouble?" Sirius inquired.

Peter glanced up in momentary surprise, obviously having been so caught up in his essay that he hadn't noticed his friend had returned until Sirius had spoken to him. Then he shrugged, tossed his quill to the side, and flopped down onto his back in the middle of the bed.

"Flitwick is killing me!" he spoke to his canopy. "I don't know why he thinks I'll get better at doing a charm if he makes me write a foot on it. I already know what it's supposed to do."

Sirius shrugged, though Peter couldn't see him. "He probably wants you to write about how it's supposed to work, not what it's supposed to do."

"What's the difference?" Peter cried to his canopy.

"Well, everyone knows that a Levitation Charm is supposed to make things levitate," Sirius said, thinking back to his conversation with Professor McGonagall and how it would apply to Charms, "but it's just as important to know _how_ it makes things levitate."

Peter lifted himself onto his elbows and stared at Sirius in utter confusion. "It works through magic, mate," he said as if he were explaining it to a Muggle.

Sirius laughed. He decided that trying to explain it to Peter using Charms, the other boy's absolute worst class, as an example was probably never going to work.

"Never mind," he told the blond. "I'm going to take a shower."

Sirius gathered his things and walked by James Potter without acknowledging him once.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I just want to say at the end of this chapter in particular that I do plan on following the events of canon as Harry sees them. It will just be that Sirius's perspective is very different from what Harry knows. I won't give anything away specifically, but I thought that some people might like reassurance that this is AU as far as different/more things happening in the background but not in the sense that anything Harry knows about won't happen. I know that some people don't like drastically changed things.

I also thought that I would share a picture of a beautiful specimen of a great gray owl, which I noticed at the American Museum of Natural History during my last visit. This is the kind of owl Aquilina is, if you all remember. Thanks to this site's failure to do links, you'll have to translate this into a url: It's on the site called Imgur dot com forward-slash 0wahF60.


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